Rififi (1955)
Directed by Jules Dassin
Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony turns down a quick job his friend Jo offers him, until he discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter during Tony's absence. Expanding a minor smash-and-grab into a full-scale jewel heist, Tony and his crew appear to get away clean, but their actions after the job is completed threaten the lives of everyone involved.
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5 films that influenced Rififi
What critics say influenced Rififi
John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950) was a telling precursor to “Rififi,” but Dassin’s unforgettable centerpiece safecracking sequence — devoid of any music or dialogue — gave birth to a new subgenre of movies, the heist film.
They both owe something to John Huston's "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950), which has the general idea but not the attention to detail.
Sandwiched between two great American heist flicks — John Huston's 1950 The Asphalt Jungle and Stanley Kubrick's 1956 The Killing — French writer-director Jules Dassin's Rififi employs the three-act structure that works well for any film of this nature: the meticulous planning of the robbery, the crime itself, and the aftermath during which things begin to unravel for the crooks involved.
The opening half-hour--the burglary of a jewelry store, filmed in meticulous detail--is as good as its inspiration in The Asphalt Jungle, but the film turns moralistic and sour in the last half, when the thieves fall out.
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and that Stanley Kubrick would follow in The Killing a year later.
…compares more than favorably with the memorable Hollywood film "The Asphalt Jungle."
Dassin scouted locations for the picture by taking long walks with his secretary, and as a result Rififi joins Boudu Saved from Drowning , Les Bonnes Femmes , and Breathless as one of the great street-level views of Parisian life.
As a noir, it doesn't match Double Indemnity or Out of the Past -- there's a surplus of standard-issue characters and gimmicky plot devices.
At the time Dassin had nearly a dozen American movies under his belt, including such respected noir films as “Brute Force” and “The Naked City.”
A rising director of hard-hitting film noir in the late 1940s (including 1947’s Brute Force and 1949’s The Naked City), he was named a communist and blacklisted during the HUAC hearings of the early 1950s, forcing him to flee to Europe, where his attempts to continue his filmmaking career were constantly undermined from abroad by pressure from the U.S. When he was offered the chance to direct Rififi, it was literally his last shot at maintaining a career, and he was richly rewarded with an international hit and a director’s award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Jules Dassin ("Rififi"/"Naked City") directs this hard-hitting but outdated crime drama concerned about prison conditions.
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At the time Dassin had nearly a dozen American movies under his belt, including such respected noir films as “Brute Force” and “The Naked City.”
A rising director of hard-hitting film noir in the late 1940s (including 1947’s Brute Force and 1949’s The Naked City), he was named a communist and blacklisted during the HUAC hearings of the early 1950s, forcing him to flee to Europe, where his attempts to continue his filmmaking career were constantly undermined from abroad by pressure from the U.S. When he was offered the chance to direct Rififi, it was literally his last shot at maintaining a career, and he was richly rewarded with an international hit and a director’s award at the Cannes Film Festival.
"The Naked City" (1948) is famous for its semi-documentary use of New York.
Though he had studio credits like "The Naked City," "Thieves' Highway" and "Night and the City," director Dassin was an unlikely candidate to turn this book into a legendary film.
It was directed by crime expert Jules Dassin (Thieves' Highway, Rififi) and produced/narrated by newspaperman Mark Hellinger, and its location photography and realism are worn like badges of honor.