Rififi
Rififi | |
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Directed by | Jules Dassin |
Written by |
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Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Philippe Agostini |
Edited by | Roger Dwyre |
Music by | Georges Auric |
Distributed by | Pathé (France) |
Release date |
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Running time | 115 minutes |
Country | France |
Language | French |
Budget | $200,000[1][2] |
Rififi (
After he was blacklisted from Hollywood, Dassin found work in France where he was asked to direct Rififi. Despite his distaste for parts of the original novel, Dassin agreed to direct the film. He shot Rififi while working with a low budget, without a star cast, and with the production staff working for low wages.[2]
Upon the initial release of the film, it received positive reactions from audiences and critics in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The film earned Dassin the award for
Plot
Tony "le
The caper begins with the group chiseling through a cement ceiling from an upstairs flat on a Sunday night. The suspenseful break-in is completed, and the criminals appear to escape without leaving any trace of their identities. However, without the others' knowledge, César pocketed a diamond ring as a bauble for his lover Viviane, a chanteuse at Grutter's club. The heist makes headline news and the four men arrange to fence the loot with a London contact. Meanwhile, Grutter has seen Mado and her injuries, and she breaks off their relationship. Infuriated at Tony's interference in his life, Grutter gives heroin to his drug-addicted brother Rémy and tells him to murder Tony. But then, the other Grutter brother, Louis, shows them the diamond César gave to Viviane and they realize that César, Mario, and Tony were responsible for the jewel theft. Grutter forces César to confess. Forsaking a FF10 million police reward, Grutter decides to steal the jewels from Tony's gang, with Rémy brutally murdering Mario and his wife Ida when they refuse to reveal where the loot is hidden. Tony retrieves it from the couple's apartment and anonymously pays for a splendid funeral for them. He then goes looking for Grutter and stumbles onto the captive César, who confesses having squealed. Citing "the rules," Tony ruefully kills him.
Meanwhile, seeking to force their adversaries' hand, Grutter's thugs kidnap Jo's five-year-old son Tonio and hold him for ransom. The London fence arrives with the payoff, after which Tony leaves to single-handedly rescue the child by force, advising Jo it is the only way they will see him alive. With Mado's help, he tracks Tonio down at Grutter's country house and kills Rémy and Louis while rescuing him. On the way back to Paris, Tony learns Jo has cracked under the pressure and agreed to meet Grutter at his house with the money. When Jo arrives Grutter tells him Tony has already snatched the child and kills him. Seconds too late to save his friend, Tony is mortally wounded by Grutter but kills him as Grutter tries to flee with the loot. Bleeding profusely, Tony drives maniacally back to Paris and delivers Tonio home safely before dying at the wheel as police and bystanders close in on him and a suitcase filled with FF120 million in cash. Jo's wife, Louise, takes her child from the car and leaves the suitcase and the body to police.
Cast
- Jean Servais as Tony "le Stéphanois": A gangster who recently returned from serving five years in prison for jewel theft. The eldest member in on the heist, Tony is godfather of namesake Tonio, son of Jo "le Suédois".
- Swedishgangster Tony took the five-year rap for. Jo invites Tony in on the heist. "Le Suédois" translates to "the Swede" in French.
- Italiangangster who came up with the original idea for a jewel heist.
- Jules Dassin as César "le Milanais": An expert safecracker hired by Tony with a weakness for women. Dassin played the role under the pseudonym of Perlo Vita.[2]
- Magali Noël as Viviane: a night-club singer who gets involved with César "le Milanais"; she sings the film's title song.
- Claude Sylvain as Ida: Mario Ferrati's wife
- Marcel Lupovici as Pierre Grutter: Leader of the Grutter gang and owner of the night-club L'Âge d'Or.
- Robert Hossein as Rémy Grutter: A member of the Grutter gang, addicted to heroin.
- Pierre Grasset as Louis Grutter: A member of the Grutter gang.
- Marie Sabouret as Mado: The former lover of Tony "le Stéphanois".
- Dominique Maurin as Tonio, the young son of Jo "le Suédois".
- Janine Darcey as Louise, Jo's wife and the mother of Tonio.
Production
Development
The film Rififi was originally to be directed by
Using his native
Filming
Working with a budget of $200,000, Dassin could not afford top stars for the film.[2][13] To carry the lead role, Dassin selected Jean Servais, an actor whose career had slumped due to alcoholism.[1] For Italian gangster Mario Ferrati, Dassin cast Robert Manuel after seeing him perform a comic role as a member of Comédie-Française.[1] After a suggestion made by the wife of the film's producer, Dassin cast Carl Möhner as Jo the Swede.[1] Dassin would use Möhner again in his next film He Who Must Die.[1] Dassin himself played the role of the Italian safecracker César the Milanese.[1] Dassin explained in an interview that he "had cast a very good actor in Italy, whose name escapes me, but he never got the contract!...So I had to put on the mustache and do the part myself".[1]
Rififi was filmed during the wintertime in Paris and used real locations rather than studio sets.[2][14] Due to the low budget, the locations were scouted by Dassin himself.[2] Dassin's fee for writing, directing, and acting was US$8,000.[13] Dassin's production designer, to whom he referred as "one of the greatest men in the history of cinema", was Alexandre Trauner. Out of friendship for Dassin, Trauner did the film for very little money.[1] Dassin argued with his producer Henri Bérard on two points: Dassin refused to shoot the film when there was sunlight claiming that he "just wanted grey";[12] and there were to be no fist fights in the film. Such fight scenes had been important to the popular success in France of the Lemmy Caution film series.[12]
Rififi's heist scene was based on an actual burglary that took place in 1899 along Marseille's cours St-Louis. A gang broke into the first floor offices of a travel agency, cutting a hole in the floor and using an umbrella to catch the debris in order to make off with the contents of the jeweler's shop below.[15] The scene where Tony regretfully chooses to kill César for his betrayal of the thieves' code of silence was filmed as an allusion to how Dassin and others felt after finding their contemporaries willing to name names in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.[14] This act was not in the original novel.[12]
Music and title
Georges Auric was hired as the composer for the film. Dassin and Auric originally could not agree about scoring the half-hour caper scene. After Dassin told Auric he did not want music, Auric claimed he would "protect [him]. I'm going to write the music for the scene anyways, because you need to be protected". After filming was finished, Dassin showed the film to Auric once with music and once without. Afterward, Auric agreed the scene should be unscored.[1]
In 2001, Dassin admitted that he somewhat regretted the Rififi theme song, utilized only to explain the film's title which is never mentioned by any other film characters.
Release
Rififi debuted in France on 13 April 1955.[16] The film was banned in some countries due to its heist scene, referred to by the Los Angeles Times reviewer as a "master class in breaking and entering as well as filmmaking".[17] The Mexican interior ministry
Rififi was a popular success in France which led to several other Rififi films based on le Breton's stories.
Home media
In
The film was released to Blu-Ray and re-released to DVD in Region 1 by Criterion on 14 January 2014.Critical reception
Upon its original release, film critic and future
Rififi was re-released for a limited run within America on 21 July 2000 in a new 35 mm print containing new, more explicit
Among negative reviews of the film, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader felt that "the film turns moralistic and sour in the last half, when the thieves fall out."[39] The critic and director Jean-Luc Godard regarded the film negatively in comparison to other French crime films of the era, noting in 1986 that "today it can't hold a candle to Touchez pas au grisbi which paved the way for it, let alone Bob le flambeur which it paved the way for."[40]
See also
- 1955 in film
- List of French films of 1955
- List of French-language films
- List of crime films of the 1950s
- Rifampicin, Italian-developed antibiotics (rifamycins) named after the film
- Big Deal on Madonna Street
- Heist film
Notes
References
- ^ ISBN 0-7800-2396-X.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Ebert, Roger (6 October 2000). "Rififi (1954)". Chicago Sun-Times.
- ^ a b c Turan, Kenneth (6 October 2000). "Movie Review; 'Rififi' Remains the Perfect Heist (Movie); Jules Dassin's 1955 thriller has lost none of its power to captivate and entertain an audience". Los Angeles Times.
- ISBN 2-03-530206-4.
- ^ a b [1] The Lethbridge Herald, 18 August 1956 via www.newspaperarchive.com (subscription required)
- ^ a b c Powrie 2006, p. 71.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Rififi". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
- ^ Rialto Pictures (6 August 2015). "RIFIFI - Trailer". Vimeo. Vimeo, LLC. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
- ^ a b Truffaut 1994, p. 209.
- ^ a b c Powrie 2006, p. 76.
- ^ a b Berg, Sandra (November 2006). "When Noir Turned Black". Written by. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 24 December 2008.
- ^ ISBN 0-7800-2396-X.
- ^ a b c d Sragow, Michael (16 July 2000). "FILM; A Noir Classic Makes It Back From the Blacklist". The New York Times.
- ^ a b c Powrie 2006, p. 77.
- ^ Powrie 2006, p. 73.
- ^ Bozzola, Lucia. "Rififi". AllMovie. Archived from the original on 26 July 2012. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
- ^ Luther, Claudia (1 April 2008). "Blacklisted Director Jules Dassin Dies at 96". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Törnudd 1986, p. 152.
- OCLC 85017263.
- ^ Hardy 1997, p. 118.
- ^ Hardy 1997, p. 119.
- ^ Lenera, Dr (10 May 2015). "DOC'S JOURNEY INTO HAMMER FILMS #26: THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT [1955]". Horror Cult Films. Archived from the original on 14 July 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
Timed to coincide with the second TV Quatermass series Quatermass 2, the film went out on a double bill with either the short The Eric Winstone Band Show or Rififi, the latter becoming the most successful double bill release of 1955 in the UK.
- ^ Levy 2003, p. 343.
- ^ a b Levy 2003, p. 344.
- ^ a b Foerstel 1998, p. 165.
- ^ Fleming, Michael (18 August 2005). "Pacino in hest [sic] mode with 'Rififi'". Variety. Retrieved 8 January 2009.
- ^ Hunt and Doogan 2004, p. 330.
- ^ a b c "Rififi (re-release) (2001): Reviews." Metacritic. Retrieved 15 November 2008.
- ^ Hunt and Doogan 2004, p. 329.
- ^ Sven Astanov. "Rififi Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
- ^ "Arrow Films - RIFIFI". Arrow Films. Retrieved 15 November 2008.
- ^ "Rififi [1954]". Amazon UK. 21 April 2003. Retrieved 15 November 2008.
- ^ Hillier 1985, p. 285.
- ^ Crowther, Bosley (6 June 1956). "Rififi (1955)". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 January 2009.
- Allmovie. Retrieved 17 April 2010.
- ^ Allmovie. Retrieved 17 April 2010.
- ^ "Rififi - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Archived from the original on 3 September 2012. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
- ^ "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema". Empire. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ Kehr, David (26 October 1985). "Rififi Capsule". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 17 April 2010.
- ^ Godard 1986, p. 127.
Bibliography
- Powrie, Phil (2006). The Cinema of France. Wallflower Press. ISBN 1-904764-46-0. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- Hunt, Bill; Todd Doogan (2004). The Digital Bits Insider's Guide to DVD: Insider's Guide to DVD. McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0-07-141852-0. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- Hardy, Phil (1997). The BFI Companion to Crime. ISBN 0-304-33215-1. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- Truffaut, François; Leonard Mayhew (1994). The Films In My Life. ISBN 0-306-80599-5. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- Levy, Emanuel (2003). All about Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8264-1452-4. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- Hillier, Jim; Nick Browne; David Wilson (1985). Cahiers Du Cinema: Volume I: The 1950s. Neo-Realism, Hollywood, New Wave. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15105-8. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- Törnudd, Klaus (1986). Finland and the International Norms of Human Rights. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 90-247-3257-3. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- Foerstel, Herbert N. (1998). Banned in the Media: A Reference Guide to Censorship in the Press, Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, and the Internet. ISBN 0-313-30245-6. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- Godard, Jean Luc; Jean Narboni; Tom Milne (1986). Godard on Godard. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80259-7. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
External links
- Rififi at AllMovie
- Rififi at IMDb
- Rififi at Metacritic
- Rififi at Rotten Tomatoes
- Rififi at the TCM Movie Database
- Rififi: A Global Caper an essay by Criterion Collection