RIFFIFI
DU RIFFIFI CHEX LES HOMMES | JULES DASSIN, 1955
FRANCE | 118M MINUTES
In the most popular and celebrated French film noir of all time, blacklisted American Jules Dassin transforms pulp writer Auguste le Breton’s popular potboiler into a riveting existential thriller that set the template for all heist movies to come. Back on the street following a five-year prison sentence, jewel thief Tony le Stéphanois (grizzled character actor Jean Servais) is quickly approached by old friends Jo (Carl Möhner) and Mario (Robert Manuel) about helping them to rob a famous jewelry shop’s elaborate show window. Instead, Tony proposes that they raid the safe, thus setting the stage for the film’s masterful, 30-minute centerpiece (based on an actual 1899 burglary in Marseille), staged without a single word of dialogue or note of music. (That’s Dassin himself, credited under a pseudonym, as safecracker César.) The heist goes off without a hitch, but not so the aftermath, especially once a local gangster sweet on Tony’s ex-girlfriend starts to play his cards. Take it from François Truffaut, who famously noted, “"Out of the worst crime novels I ever read, Jules Dassin has made the best crime film I've ever seen."
Founded in 1997 by legendary exhibitor and programmer Bruce Goldstein (joined one year later by partner Adrienne Halpern), Rialto Pictures quickly established itself as a new gold standard in the distribution of classic world cinema—from reissues of landmark works like The Third Man and Grand Illusion to the rediscovery of little-known masterpieces never before released in the U.S., including Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso, Claude Sautet’s Classe Tous Risques and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows. On the occasion of Rialto’s 15th anniversary, we are pleased to present an exclusive weekday matinee series of 15 treasures from their remarkable library. Series programmed by Scott Foundas, Eric Di Bernardo and Adrienne Halpern.
Comments