Wednesday, August 14, 6:00pm. Address given with RSVP.

 RSVP:  https://nextsf.helpfulvillage.com/events/760415-888-2868.

Rififi ––  (Black & White) France  Jules Dassin   1955    2 hr s 26 min    8/14/19

After making such American noir classics as Brute Forceand The Naked City, the blacklisted director Jules Dassin moved to Paris and directed his masterpiece: a twisting, turning tale of four ex-cons who plot a last glorious robbery in the City of Light. They are successful, at first, but run into the greedy and murderous figures of an underworld they are a part of and who want what they stole.

Set in the marginal world of Montmartre, with its nightclubs and desolate early morning streets, and shot on a budget of only $200,000, it stars Jean Servais  (Tony le Stéphanois, which means he came from the city of St. Étienne),a Belgian actor who had survived a battle with alcoholism that showed on his world-weary face. Rififi (which means in the argot of the times, violent brawl) was considered by Truffaut to be the perfect film noir, with a complicated heist by a gang of “specialists” as its centerpiece.   Other films like it came earlier, The Asphalt Jungle (1950), which we showed in May, 2018, but Rififiwas unique for two reasons: its near half-hour heist scene shot without dialogue or music; and Dassin’s exploration of the nastier aspects of human behavior revealed by the underworld, where the chance for a big haul brings out the worst in the already hardened.   Of course, some of the thieves make mistakes after the heist, unable to control their excitement at the success, and unwittingly helpi those who would do them in for the loot.  (How closely the scenario parallels the world of banking and finance in The Big Short.)

Dassin, himself, plays the safecracker, Perlo Dita, Carl Möhner is Jo the Swede, Tony’s close friend, and Magali Noël is Viviane the nightclub singer.  There is considerable violence in the film but almost all of it is off-screen, the camera focusing on the perpetrator’s face not the Tarrentino-like blood and gore of the victim.

Let us know if you need transportation. All are welcome. $5 for non-members.