Bob le Flambeur (1956)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
In Paris, Bob Montagne is practically synonymous with gambling -- and winning. He is kind, classy and well-liked by virtually everyone in town, including police inspector Ledru. However, when Bob's luck turns sour, he begins to lose friends and makes the most desperate gamble of his life: to rob the Deauville casino during Grand Prix weekend, when the vaults are full. Unfortunately, Bob soon learns that the game is rigged and the cops are on to him.
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What critics compared Bob le Flambeur to
The original original "Ocean's 11," made in 1960 by the Rat Pack, was a send-up of 1950s caper movies (it was inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville's French classic "Bob le Flambeur").
Tchéky Karyo, my new favorite unshaven French actor (you can see him next week in The Good Thief, Neil Jordan's fun remake of Bob le Flambeur [1955]), plays an endearing French researcher called Sergei, and Stanley Tucci is a hoot as a plummy-voiced prima donna celebrity-scientist who might have inadvertently caused the whole core mess in the first place.
Its allusions to lots of movies—Walter Hill’s The Driver, Taxi Driver, Bob le flambeur or The Killers, as well as Sixteen Candles (according to Refn ), even The Maltese Falcon and Treasure of the Sierra Madre, are more substantive than the hero’s emotional or moral trajectory.
(Some of his earlier pictures are “Bob le Flambeur,” “Léon Morin, Prêtre,” “Le Doulos,” and “Le Deuxième Souffle.”)
With every minute of Henri Decaё's cinematography looking like a Eugène Atget photograph, Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob Le Flambeur is a visually stunning film from a director who influenced filmmakers as diverse as Jean-Luc Godard (who quotes Bob Le Flambeur at least twice in Breathless) and John Woo (whose The Killer takes its basic plot from Melville's Le Samourai).
I've seen only three other Melville films - his version of Jean Cocteau's ''Les Enfants Terribles'' (originally released here as ''The Strange Ones'' in 1952) and two ''policiers,'' ''L'Aine des Ferchaux,'' shown at the first New York Film Festival in 1963 as ''Magnet of Doom,'' and ''Le Samourai,'' released here in 1972 as ''The Godson.''
But in "Bob le Flambeur" and the later "Le Samouraï" (in which Alain Delon plays an existential hit man), he went far beyond mere imitation.
Delon also worked for him in " Le Samourai " (1967), and "Un Flic" (1972); Jean-Paul Belmondo was in "Aine des Ferchaux," also known as "Magnet of Doom" (1963).
It was Melville's fourth feature film; he would go on to do many more memorable crime flicks such as Le Doulos, Le Samourai and Un Flic.
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Melville's " Bob le Flambeur " (1955) is referenced when we meet the man who informed on Bob, or when Michel tells a friend, "Bob the gambler would have cashed my check."
Bob le Flambeur is a character in this underworld, and there's Jean-Pierre Melville holding court at the Orly Airport, fielding questions from the gamine.
One of them, Bob le flambeur (1956), pops up when its title character, Bob the Gambler, is mentioned as being an acquaintance of Michel's who's now in jail.
Breezy allusions to Melville's films also pop up, particularly "Bob Le Flambeur".
On trouvera même, dans le rôle d’un romancier, Jean-Pierre Melville, cinq ans après Bob le flambeur.