Film: Rififi
Year of production: 1955
UK Release date: 9th May 2011
Distributor: Arrow
Certificate: 12
Running time: 122 mins
Director: Jules Dassin
Starring: Jean Servais, Carl Mohner, Robert Manuel, Magali Noel, Perlo Vita
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country of Production: France
Language: French/Italian/English
Review by: Karen Rogerson
Based on the crime novel of the same name by Auguste le Breton, Rififi was one of a number of films of France’s 1950s film noir revival. Using the familiar motifs of the genre – the world weary patriarchal crime lord, the downtrodden women, and the promise of the big heist to end all heists - it explores the loyalties and betrayals that form the dynamics of its demimonde society.
Tony le Stéphanois (Jean Servais) is back in the big bad Paris underworld following a five year stint in jail. He’s short of cash and status amongst his peers and has been abandoned by his lover, Mado, for a night club owner. Tony’s former associates, the brawny Jo le Suedois (Carl Möhner) and the clownish, ebullient Italian Mario Ferrati (Robert Manuel) pitch an idea to Tony that could revive his fortunes. Their simple plan of a smash and grab raid on the jewellers Mappin and Webb is transformed, under Tony’s leadership, into a far more sophisticated operation to disable the shop’s state of the art (for the 1950s) alarm system and crack the safe.
To do this, they need the legendary skills of the safe cracker César le Milanais (played by director Jules Dassin under the alias Perlo Vita) of whom it’s said that “there’s not a safe that can resist César, or a woman that César can resist,” a knowing forewarning to the audience that playing with film noir’s seductive women is a dangerous game on both sides. Tony’s discovery that Mado left him for a succession of different men when he went to prison has a violent outcome, and she flees in fear for her life. At the night club owned by Mado’s lover, César hooks up with the sultry Viviane, who sings the film’s theme song, ‘Le Rififi’, against a dramatic backdrop of the silhouetted figures of a gangster and his moll, miming attitudes of seduction and violence. The criminal world of Rififi, she explains, means trouble and danger, but also holds an irresistible attraction.
Following the complicated undercurrents of relations in the night club, the subsequent heist scene has a sense of clear purpose and camaraderie, illustrating the understanding, patience and almost artisanal quality of the criminals when working together on a job. The planning, knowledge and skill of Tony’s people is clearly second to none, but will this be enough to overcome all possible obstacles and mishaps that could jeopardise the heist and their own lives?
As with any film in the noir genre, Rififi allows its audience to dabble vicariously in the darkness of its criminal world, both in the shady shabbiness of Paris’ seedier arrondissements, and in the tight lipped and perilous alliances of its characters. In a world where women are both victims and betrayers, and the tenuous status quo depends upon selfless observance of a code of loyalty and silence, the characters’ cards are marked. Loss, violence and death will surely be the consequence for some.
Despite the sense of inevitable failure, there is an irresistible inclination, watching with heart in mouth, to want the criminals to succeed. This tension builds throughout the iconic heist scene, which Dassin extended from a short episode in Le Breton’s book to a twenty minute sequence without music or dialogue, in which Tony, Jo, César and Mario communicate only by eye contact and gesture. In this scene, their individuality becomes subsumed in the professionalism and dignity of their work. The dandyish César, dressed in evening wear, becomes quiet and purposeful. The foolishly demonstrative Mario becomes sober and restrained. Lumbering Jo displays a delicate hesitancy in his work, and the hangdog face of Tony presides over all, lending a gravitas to their undertaking. The silence allows attention to focus on the finely choreographed sequence of actions.
With little room in the criminals’ world for effusiveness and exposition, the characters are fairly sketchily drawn but the skill of the acting, dialogue and action makes them believable and engaging. Tony and César are enigmatic, but their underlying air of authority and violence indicates unrevealed layers of complexity. Servais’ Tony has an air of beaten resignation tempered by unshakeable conviction that the underworld’s code of loyalty must prevail. The incompleteness of Tony’s story, hinted at here and there, makes him all the more intriguing. The characters of Jo and Mario are more fleshed out, as we see Jo in domestic scenes with his wife and young son, and Mario flirting playfully with his girlfriend. The added emotional context makes the grim consequences of the criminals’ actions more explicit. There’s an air of desperate abandon to the brilliantly shot final scene which dramatically punches home the sense of loss that is Rififi’s inevitable outcome.
With world weary gangsters in door-jammingly wide shoulder pads, moodily shot and beautifully lit cinematography, a thumping score and a steadily building sense of tension and engagement, Rififi is a classic of the genre which continues to influence filmmakers today. KR
