RIFIFI (DU RIFIFI CHEZ LES HOMMES)

France, 1956, 115 minutes, Black and white.
Jean Servais, Carl Mohner, Robert Manuel, Janine Darcey, Robert Hossein.
Directed by Jules Dassin.

The film world has the Mc Carthy era and the blacklisting to thank for Jules Dassin’s making Rififi. This was a classic French novel by Auguste le Breton which Dassin adapted for the screen. In the novel, the criminals are north Africans but given the political situation in France and north Africa in the mid-50s, they are Frenchmen.

The film is one about a perfect crime – played without any dialogue during the crime. However, things begin to unravel after the crime. To this extent it is very much in the tradition of the film noir, especially films like John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle or Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing and Killer’s Kiss.

The film had a strong French cast and Dassin was able to bring his Hollywood background to bear on a continental film. This served him well as he went on to make a number of films in Europe rather than returning to the United States. He had begun with such films in the US as The Canterville Ghost, Brute Force, The Naked City, Night in the City. His further films included He Who Must Die as well as Never on Sunday. He married the star of Never On Sunday, Melina Mercouri, and directed her in a number of films including Phaedra, Topkapi, 10.30pm Summer.

In the late 60s he was able to return to the United States and made the African American drama Uptight.

A remake was planned for 2008 with Harold Becker directing Al Pacino.

1. The status of this film an a classic of the fifties, its influence on crime thrillers? Its impact now, originality, in the light of subsequent films?

2. The quality of entertainment and involvement: interest in the people, the robbery itself, tension and suspense, the presentation of gangs, the ultimate tragedy?

3. The quality of the film-making with an American director, working in France and capturing the atmosphere of France? His success in interpreting French characters and situations?

4. The quality and atmosphere of the black and white photography, the interiors of the houses, the night club, the room and the robbery sequences? The exteriors of Paris? The contribution of the music, the theme song of Rififi and its recurrence?

5. The importance of the camera work, angles, the editing of the robbery to show the detail of each step, the passing of time etc.?

6. How well did the film begin with the audience entering via the card game, the introduction to Tony, the telephone call establishing Tony as a character and making the link to Joe, the introduction of Joe and his linking with Mario, Mario and his telephone call and the linking with Cesar? How well were we introduced to the main characters, getting to know them, interested in their criminal project?

7. The film's point of view on criminals: sympathies, the presentation of the missed persons, their code, conscience, greed, plans and their attention to detail? How well did the film build up the detail of the decision to rob the safe, studying of the shop itself, Cesar and his going to buy jewellery, the details of their experiments especially with the alarm system and the devices to cheek it? The retaining of audience interest in the details. the rousing of hopes?

8. How was this balanced by the human side of the presentation of characters: Tony and his hostility towards Mado and his love for her? The clash with the Grutters? Cesar and his Italian style, arrival from Milan, the liaison with Yvonne? Joe at home, the background of jail, his girl, the boy and playing with him? Tony as the boy's uncle? Mario and Ida at home, the lightheartedness of Mario, Ida and the bath, her devotion to Mario? The attention to detail, the editing of these sequences with the preparations for the robbery?

9. The portrayal of gangs and the mentality of gangs in Paris? The clash especially because of Mado? The tension between the Grutters and Tony?

10. The robbery sequence in considered a classic: comment on the attention to detail, the audience ability to follow what was happening and why, the attention to the passing of time, the workers, the waiting? The build-up of tension? The exhilaration at achieving success? Cesar and his taking of the ring?

11. The suspense with the police and the examination of the car, Tony's quick thinking and the success of their escape?

12. What were the possibilities of their success? Their taking the jewellery, the atmosphere of the scene where they examine it, Ida, and her presence and putting her back to bed? The newspapers and the reports? The irony of Cesar being the weak link, his taking of the ring, his infatuation with Yvonne and giving it to her? Her prattle about it being an imitation, the irony of her taking It straight to the Grutters? His talking, his weakness, his giving the information about Mario because of fear? A pleasant character, Tony saying he was pleasant but the code demanding his death? Audience reaction to Tony's shooting him and the way that it was located, filmed with the tracking shots and Tony shooting at a distance?

13. The contrast with Mario and Ida? Mario and his not revealing anything, Ida and her phone call? Her motivation for not giving Tony away? The off-screen melodrama of their deaths and horror of it? Tony's coming and seeing it and audiences reacting with him?

14. How unsympathetic ware the Grutters: the boss, the brother with the drugs, the plans, the shrewd estimation of Where the jewellery was? The break with Mado?

15. The importance of Mado and her help especially in Tony's going to the Grutters?

16. The transition in atmosphere with the kidnapping of the boy, the effect on Joe? Tony and Joe working out a strategy, the mother and her being distraught? Joe and the telephone calls, the irony of his being caught, taking the money, the confrontation with Grutter and the pathos of his death, lying dead on the stairs, Tony looking at Joe dead?

17. The final focus on Tony, his tracking the Grutters step by step, the phone call, Mado, the pursuit in the Metro? His arrival and tracking the dope man? Taking the child, the killing? Taking him away in the car, the sandwich, the telephone call and the inevitability of his return? His being shot, the death of Grutter, the atmosphere of his driving back to Paris with the boy enjoying the trip, looking at the trees, the people, playing and the irony of Tony with his death wound? His finally arriving and the relief of the mother, the crowd gathering?

18. How humane a portrait of criminals an men? Weakness? Malice?

19. A presentation of crime, justice, retribution?

20. The effect of the final image and what it signified, getting to know people, death, anonymity?