Thursday, February 11, 2010
Film Bet the Rent on 'Bob' as Noir Fest 2 Busts Out
Posted by Jim Ridley on Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 4:07 PM
Last night, anyone who wasn't at Sarratt's packed-to-capacity screening of Peter Guralnick's Sam Cooke doc was a few blocks away at The Belcourt, where what looked like a couple hundred people turned out for the opening night of the theater's Noir Fest 2. You've still got a few more chances to see last night's feature, the 1949 Carol Reed classic The Third Man, but tonight's 7:30 feature is no less a must-see: Jean-Pierre Melville's top-notch 1955 caper thriller Bob le Flambeur. A few words on the film that didn't make it into this week's Scene:
"The cinematic birth of the cool," critic J. Hoberman called Jean-Pierre Melville's smashing caper movie, and he's got a point. In 1955, it predated the influential gangster homages of the Nouvelle Vague by four years -- Godard gave Melville a shout-out and a cameo in 1959's Breathless -- and it remains a feast of underworld ambience, hot jazz and gaming-table brinkmanship. It's an admiring character study of Bob Montagné (Roger Duchesne), a silver-haired card sharp known as "le Flambeur" (the high roller), who navigates the Montmartre demimonde with kingly assurance. (According to Rialto Pictures' press notes, Duchesne was well cast: He spent a stretch in prison for a botched stick-up and was chased out of Paris by the Mob.) When he isn't mentoring a young hood (Daniel Cauchy) or shielding a sizzling babe (15-year-old Isabelle Corey) from the advances of a predatory pimp, he's cruising from back-room poker games to casinos to feed his gambling habit. But he bets all his chips on a long shot: a heist of the Deauville casino that could net the retired gangster 800 million francs. Can he hold off his addiction until the job is done -- or will the call of the cards prove too strong to resist? The movie was co-written by Auguste le Breton, the pulp novelist who supplied the source material for the previous year's Rififi; it shares with the earlier film a love of criminal lingo as well as a debt to American caper procedurals like The Asphalt Jungle. But the mood is wittier, less brutal. Bob's such a standup guy that crooks and cops alike respect him, and Melville delights in his raffish aristocracy. And the closing kicker is a beaut. If you enjoyed the glamorous grift of the Ocean's Eleven remake, put all your chips here. With Guy Decomble (the French teacher in Truffaut's The 400 Blows); the snappy B&W cinematography is by New Wave mainstay Henri Decae.
Comments (4)
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The remake of this was pretty good, The Good Thef with Nick Nolte. It was the guy who made The Cryig Game.
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Posted by
Pierrot le Fou
on February 11, 2010 at 9:40 PM
Bob le Flambeur is right up there with Some Like It Hot for perfect closing lines, I gotta say.
Posted by
nm
on February 12, 2010 at 7:58 AM
Most French crime/adventure films from the early 1950's to late 1960's are well worth the time and effort to seek out and watch, particularly the ones that have the actors Lino Ventura, Jean Gabin, or Paul Frankeur in lead or strong supporting roles. Look for them. You will definitely see how great hard and fast action movies are supposed to look and feel.
Posted by
Conslor
on February 15, 2010 at 4:33 AM
