Rififi
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Du rififi chez les hommes is a French 1955 black-and-white big caper movie (called Rififi in the film's US release). It was directed by Jules Dassin, creator of many American film noir classics including The Naked City, Thieves' Highway, Brute Force and Night and the City. The film's score was composed by Georges Auric. The much imitated jewellery store heist sequence is over 32-minutes long and contains not a single line of dialogue or music. Director Dassin appeared in the movie as César le Milanais (the criminal/womaniser).
Critical reaction
The film today is considered a classic film noir. Critic Roger Ebert lists the film in his 100 Greatest Movies:François Truffaut called Rififi "the best film noir he'd ever seen" (it was based, he added, on the worst noir novel he'd ever read). Dassin's inspiration was to expand the safe-cracking job, which is negligible in the book, into a breathless sequence that occupies a fourth of the running time and is played entirely without words or music. So meticulous is the construction and so specific the detail of this scene that it's said the Paris police briefly banned the movie because they feared it was an instructional guide.
Main cast
- Jean Servais
- Carl Möhner
- Robert Manuel
- Jules Dassin
External links
- [Jamie Hook essay at criterionco.com]
- [RIFIFÍ se utliza en español para referirse a la famosa película italiana de los años '50 y se aplica a un ladrón elegante, inteligente, muy profesional y de guante blanco]
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