Touchez pas au grisbi.

Max le Menteur (“Max the Liar”) and Riton are sitting pretty just waiting for the day they can retire from a life of crime. These two aging hoods have just pulled off the heist of a lifetime, 50 million francs in gold bullion snatched at Orly airport. For Max, this hoist will ensure him a comfortable retirement, for Riton it will, or so he hopes, help him hold onto his two-faced girlfriend Josy who, along with Max’s moll Lola, is appearing in a new floor show at the nightclub of their long-time underworld buddy, Pierrot (nicknamed “Fats”). But Max and Riton, who have been friends and partners for 20 years, have a wee problem. Riton has stupidly gone and boasted to Josy about the gold, which Max has stashed away in a car locked up in his building’s parking garage. Josy passes the news on to Angelo, a dangerous young drug dealer whom Max discovers making out with Josy in her dressing room at Fats’ club. Before the old friends realize Angelo’s game, it’s too late. After a first failed attempt to abduct both hoods, Angelo finally manages to kidnaps Riton and threatens his life if Max does not hand over the loot. At first Max is angered by Riton’s stupidity, but once he calms down realises that if he wants to save his friends life he must hand over the gold.  The exchange has been arranged to take place at night on a deserted country road just outside Paris. Dusting off some old sub-machine guns Max and friends set out the get Riton back and if possible hang on to the gold.

 

Lino Ventura with Jean Gabin.

Ventura with Jeanne Moreau. 

This jazz themed gangster movie Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) directed by Jacques Becker, who had served his filmmaking apprentice under the great French director Jean Renoir, is a fabulous watch, an action packed crime thriller that’s skilfully crafted but never goes over the top. It has two other advantages one is the soundtrack. Jean Wiener’s harmonica melody for Grisbi played by Jean Wetzel remains one of the most famous French movie themes of all time. Its success was such that the melody was quickly supplied with lyrics for a vocal version and released in the USA. The second is the style and fashions especially of the women. There are no waifs in this movie; all the ladies tend to be voluptuous and very well dressed. They include a very young looking Jeanne Moreau an actress that has appeared in many movies including Lift to the Scaffold (1958), Joseph Losey’s Eva (1962) and Fassbinder’s final movie Querelle in 1982. Also appearing are the delectable named Dora Doll, the Italian dancer and actress Delia Scala and the beautiful Marilyn Buford who had been crowned Miss America in 1946.

 

American Beauty Queen Marilyn Buford has a dinner date with Gabin.

The lovely Delia Scala gets close to a smart suit. 

The movie is credited with influencing Jean-Pierre Melville as well as relaunching the career of of one of Frances best-known pre war character actors Jean Gabin who plays Max, his partner Riton is played by Rene Dary.  Also involved is the Italian born actor Lino Ventura (Classe tous risques 1960) who made over 70 films in a 33 year period working with such world renowned directors as Claude Lelouch, Jean-Pierre Melville, Gerard Pires, Vittorio De Sica and Louis Malle to name but a few. Ventura was a big man, a wrestler as a youth and the epitome of a French gangster therefore ideal for the role of Angelo, Screened in competition at the1954 Venice Film Festival, the movie was based on a novel of the same name written by Albert Simonian, which was published in 1953. Location filming took place in Paris and the outskirts of Nice. It was released in Paris on March 17^th 1954 but not in the UK, where it was known as Honour Among Thieves, until 1956.

Even the cars looked good!

Classe tous risques.

A new season of Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre’s Film Club began with a not particular well-known French gangster film from 1960. The host for the evening was our very own Brendan Kearney who opened the proceedings with a short, but informative introduction.

Brendan informed the audience that the brilliance of Classe tous risques (1960), known as The Big Risk in America, was down to three men. Firstly the director Claude Sautet, again not very well known outside his native France which is surprising considering that he not only directed 15 films between 1951 and 1995 but also was assistant director on 14 films including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face in 1959 and has 29 films to his credit as a screenwriter. The second big influence on the film was Jose Giovanni a French/Swiss writer who’s novel Sautet adapted for the screen. Giovanni was a former criminal who was sentenced to death in 1948 for his part in the death of three people narrowly escaping the guillotine when his sentence was commuted to twenty years of hard labour, released in 1956 he was pardoned in 1986. Giovanni’s experiences in prison lead him to write a series of novels. The first novel was published in 1957 and was called Le trou (The Hole). It tells of the escape he attempted from prison with other inmates in 1947this was also made into a film directed by Jacques Becker. While incarcerated he met a vicious gangster called Abel Damos who was waiting a death sentence passed in his absence during the years he spent as a fugitive in Italy with his wife and sons. It was this character who inspired Giovanni to write a further book in 1958 called Classe tous risques changing the main characters name to Abel Davos. The third person and probable the most important is the movies leading man, Lino Ventura, an Italian who made over 70 films in a 33 year period working with such world renowned directors as Claude Lelouch, Jean-Pierre Melville, Gerard Pires, Vittorio De Sica and Louis Malle to name but a few. Ventura was a big man, a wrestler as a youth and the epitome of a French gangster, ideally cast as Abel Davos.

 

Lino Ventura, the epitome of a gangster.

Davos know that he cannot stop in Italy any longer, he is a wanted man and he knew its only time before the Polizia catch up with him. Putting his wife Therese and two boys on a train to get them across the French border, Abel and his partner Raymond plan to rob a bank messenger in broad daylight and then drive to meet wife and kids. But the robbery does not go to plan and the police are soon on their trail engaging our fearless gangsters in a gun battle.  Eventually meeting up with Therese and the boys, Pierrot and Daniel, they hire a boat to get them to Nice. When they land on the shore the local border petrol are laying in wait, another gun battle but this time our travellers do not get away scot-free. Davos contacts his old buddy’s in Paris to come and collect him but instead of coming them selves they send a stranger in the form of Eric Stark which Davos takes as disrespect and can’t wait to meet up with his so called comrades.

 

Abel Davos and Raymond.

Davos with Eric Stark.

Also featured in this movie is an early appearance by Jean-Paul Belmondo whose next film A bout de soufflé (1960) was to make him one of the biggest icon’s in French cinema and one of the actors most closely associated with its New Wave. Ironically enough it was this film that kept Classe tous risques off of the French cinema screens at that time. Italian actress Sandra Milo, who is probably best known for her award winning appearances in two of Fellini’s best known films, plays Liliane, Eric Starks love interest. Davos friend and partner in crime Raymond is played by Stan Krol[1] another tough looking gangster type who shared a prison cell with Giovanni.

 

Sandra Milo plays Starks love interest.

This black and white gangster movie has been re-released as part of a BFI season of films dedicated to its director and as usual the RBC has given its audience a chance to see a rare provincial screening of this absorbing thriller something most local filmgoers may not ever get the chance to see on a big screen. It’s an action movie with minimal dialogue and strong themes of friendship and betrayal. Nothing as  ‘glamorous’ as today’s Hollywood gangster movie, more like the Hollywood genre, which was given a French name Film Noir whose heyday lasted from the early 40’s to the late 50’s and is still held in high esteem.  The added dimension of the two young boys, the superb character studies of the main characters, the location shooting in Milan, Nice and Paris and the on screen presence of Lino Ventura makes this one of the highlights of French cinema of that period and stands up extremely well against such classics as Bande a part (1964) and Lift to the Scaffold (1958) as well as afore mentioned A bout de soufflé.

No one disrepects Abel Davos! 

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[1] Krol, who’s real name was Stan Divic, was from Polish extraction.