Touchez pas au grisbi (1954)
(Honour among Thieves/Hands Off the Loot)
Country: FR
Technical: bw 96m
Director: Jacques Becker
Cast: Jean Gabin, René Dary, Lino Ventura, Jeanne Moreau
Synopsis:
Pigalle, Paris: a successful gangster wants to offload his retirement lump sum, a haul in stolen bullion, but his next generation rivals are waiting to snatch it from him.
Review:
The old, old story of the resourceful mobster hamstrung by weak acolytes and untrustworthy dames, Becker's film is a saddening reflection of its time, with only one or two sequences having the necessary vigour and vividness. Elsewhere the screenplay basks in a surfeit of criminal argot and of young female flesh too eager to fall to Gabin's fading charms. It would take Melville to restore mythic resonance to the French 'polar' with Bob le flambeur (1956).
(Honour among Thieves/Hands Off the Loot)
Country: FR
Technical: bw 96m
Director: Jacques Becker
Cast: Jean Gabin, René Dary, Lino Ventura, Jeanne Moreau
Synopsis:
Pigalle, Paris: a successful gangster wants to offload his retirement lump sum, a haul in stolen bullion, but his next generation rivals are waiting to snatch it from him.
Review:
The old, old story of the resourceful mobster hamstrung by weak acolytes and untrustworthy dames, Becker's film is a saddening reflection of its time, with only one or two sequences having the necessary vigour and vividness. Elsewhere the screenplay basks in a surfeit of criminal argot and of young female flesh too eager to fall to Gabin's fading charms. It would take Melville to restore mythic resonance to the French 'polar' with Bob le flambeur (1956).
(Honour among Thieves/Hands Off the Loot)
Country: FR
Technical: bw 96m
Director: Jacques Becker
Cast: Jean Gabin, René Dary, Lino Ventura, Jeanne Moreau
Synopsis:
Pigalle, Paris: a successful gangster wants to offload his retirement lump sum, a haul in stolen bullion, but his next generation rivals are waiting to snatch it from him.
Review:
The old, old story of the resourceful mobster hamstrung by weak acolytes and untrustworthy dames, Becker's film is a saddening reflection of its time, with only one or two sequences having the necessary vigour and vividness. Elsewhere the screenplay basks in a surfeit of criminal argot and of young female flesh too eager to fall to Gabin's fading charms. It would take Melville to restore mythic resonance to the French 'polar' with Bob le flambeur (1956).