
I’ve been working backwards to Rififi. Oh, I’ve seen earlier heist films. The Lavender Hill Mob came out in 1951, but it’s as much a comedy as a heist. Many of the conventions of the modern heist genre come from two French noirs, released a year apart: Rififi in 1955 and Bob le Flambeur in 1956. You can trace a direct line from Mission: Impossible, the Pink Panther movies, Topkapi, and others, straight back to Rififi. It was time that I saw it the original, and was not disappointed.
Rififi opens with Tony (Jean Servais) getting booted from a poker game because he’s out of cash. Tony’s just out of prison and his girl left him for a gangster. Tony’s friend Jo (Carl Möhner) tries to get him interested in a smash-and-grab job at a jewelry store that he’s been planning with his buddy Mario (Robert Manuel). Tony’s not so sure, but eventually agrees and ups the ante by adding Cesar, a safecracker from Milan (played by Jules Dassin, the film’s director).
This is the the usual assembling-the-crew stuff, but it plays longer than it does in derivative works. We meet Mado, Tony’s ex (Marie Sabouret). He’s abusive to her, but she might still be in love with him. We meet Jo’s wife Louise (Janine Darcey) and their young son Tonio. Tony dotes on Tonio. Mario and his wife Ida (Claude Sylvain) have a tempestuous relationship but are clearly infatuated with each other. Cesar has an eye for the ladies, and his relationship with the nightclub singer Viviane (Magali Noël) will have tragic consequences for multiple people.