Table Of ContentCINÉ-FILES: The French Film Guides
Series Editor: Ginette Vincendeau
From the pioneering days of the Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe in
1895, France has been home to perhaps the most consistently vibrant film
culture in the world, producing world-class directors and stars, and a
stream of remarkable movies, from popular genre films to cult avant-garde
works. Many of these have found a devoted audience outside France, and
the arrival of DVD is now enabling a whole new generation to have access
to contemporary titles as well as the great classics of the past.
The Ciné-Files French Film Guides build on this welcome new
access, offering authoritative and entertaining guides to some of the most
significant titles, from the silent era to the early twenty-first century.
Written by experts in French cinema, the books combine extensive
research with the author’s distinctive, sometimes provocative perspective
on each film. The series will thus build up an essential collection on great
French classics, enabling students, teachers and lovers of French cinema
both to learn more about their favourite films and make new discoveries in
one of the world’s richest bodies of cinematic work.
Ginette Vincendeau
Published Ciné-Files:
Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) – Chris Darke
Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) – Isabelle Vanderschelden
Casque d’or (Jacques Becker, 1952) – Sarah Leahy
Cléo de 5 à 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962) – Valerie Orpen
La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937) – Martin O’Shaughnessy
La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) – Ginette Vincendeau
La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939) – Keith Reader
La Reine Margot (Patrice Chereau, 1994) – Julianne Pidduck
Le Corbeau (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1943) – Judith Mayne
Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955) – Susan Hayward
Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990) – Susan Hayward
Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955) – Alastair Phillips
Un chien andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929) – Elza Adamowicz
(Jules Dassin, 1955)
Alastair Phillips
Published in 2009 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © 2009 Alastair Phillips
The right of Alastair Phillips to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part
thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978 1 84885 055 2
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress catalog: available
Copy-edited and typeset by Oxford Publishing Services, Oxford
Printed and bound in India by Thomson Press India Ltd
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Plot synopsis ix
Introduction 1
1 The Route to Rififi 5
A cosmopolitan life 5
Hollywood and film noir 6
The politics of exile 9
The tradition of French film noir 11
Auguste le Breton and the Série Noire 16
Production history 20
Notes 28
2 Reading Rififi 33
Beginnings 33
Du rififi chez les hommes and the aesthetics
of the heist thriller 41
Space and genre: the nightclub 50
Space and genre: the city 57
Men and trouble 65
A transnational film noir? 74
Notes 76
3 Reviewing Rififi 79
A surprise success 79
‘A film without indulgence’ 82
The politics of realism 85
Audiences, trade and culture 90
Notes 94
4 Reviving Rififi 97
After Du rififi chez les hommes 97
Influences 99
The rififi brand 101
Rififi returns 102
Notes 103
Appendix 1: Credits 105
Appendix 2: Jules Dassin filmography 107
Appendix 3: Auguste Le Breton filmography 108
Appendix 4: Cited films 109
Appendix 5: ‘Rififi à travers le monde’ 112
Appendix 6: Select bibliography 113
Index 117
Acknowledgements
My research for this project was kindly funded by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council (AHRC) and the British Academy. I am very grateful to
these two organizations for their generous assistance. I would also like to
thank my former workplace, the University of Reading, especially the
Department of Film, Theatre & Television, for its nurturing encourage-
ment and support.
I would like to express my gratitude to the following institutions for
helping me with access to invaluable materials: in Paris, the Bibliothèque
des Littératures Policières, Bibliothèque Nationale and Bifi; in London, the
British Film Institute National Film Library and, closer to home in Oxford,
the Bodleian Library.
This book owes an enormous debt to its editor, Ginette Vincendeau,
whose scholarship has remained such a source of genuine inspiration to
me over the years. She has been a wise, supportive and very patient guide.
Thanks too to the following individuals for their various kinds of
support and assistance: Jonathan Bignell; Selina Cohen; Ed Gallafent; Peter
Graham; Theodora Hadjeandreou; Susan Hayward; Jim Hillier; Frank
Krutnik; Mark Kurzemnieks; Valerie Orpen and Lib Taylor.
And, finally, I am pleased to mention the Libros de Cine bookshop in
Madrid who supplied my unusual Rififi fridge magnet that has been with
me as I write. Thankfully, my fridge has been easier to get into than the
safe at Mappin & Webb.
Note: Although the title of this book refers to the Anglo-Saxon version, Rififi, I
have preferred to retain the original French, Du rififi chez les hommes, throughout
the main body of the text. All other French film titles have been transcribed in this
way too. Translations from French to English are by the author except where
indicated.
Plot synopsis
The ageing Parisian gangster, Tony le Stéphanois, has been released from
prison and resumes contact with his younger protégé, Jo le Suedois. We
learn that Tony, the godfather of Jo’s five-year-old son, Tonio, had taken
the rap for a failed robbery five years earlier in order to spare Jo’s family.
He is now a broken man. To redeem Tony’s standing in the underworld
and to make their fortunes, Jo and Mario Ferrati, a fellow criminal,
persuade their mentor to take part in a daring heist from the
international jewellers, Mappin & Webb. They recruit a fourth member
of the gang: César le Milanais. Meanwhile, Tony discovers that his
former lover, Mado, has moved in with Pierre Grutter, the owner of a
nightclub in Montmartre called L’Age d’Or. Tony meets up with Mado
and beats her. Mado’s friend, Viviane, performs a song called ‘Rififi’ in
the club and seduces César.
The meticulously planned robbery goes ahead with the men stealing a
cache of jewels by entering the shop from the ceiling of the owner’s
apartment above the premises. They resolve to stay underground but César
cannot resist offering a ring to Viviane. Believing it to be a fake, she shows
it to Pierre Grutter and his drug-addicted brother, Rémi. The pair quickly
deduce who had been behind the robbery recently announced in the paper.
Instead of claiming the reward offered by the Paris police, they resolve to
capture the loot themselves.
The Grutters quickly force César to betray his fellow thieves and the
pair break into Mario and his girlfriend Ida’s apartment where they cut the
couple’s throats after Ida warns Tony on the phone about what has
happened. Tony returns to the deserted L’Age D’Or and avenges these
deaths by killing César who has been left bound in the darkness backstage.
The Grutters resort to kidnapping Tonio and hold him to ransom. Jo
