Rififi

This seminal caper film is also a quintessential film noir and French gangster classic of the Fifties. Adapted from a novel by Le Breton (also the source writer for Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur), the film was directed by American expatriate Jules Dassin, who was named as a communist during the HUAC hearings of the Fifties and spent the rest of his life in exile. Rififi is a suspense gem about a band of jewel thieves who are done in eventually (and most curiously) by an informant. The movie belongs totally to the subterranean world of hoodlums and lowlifes; police are hardly to be found anywhere. The movie's look and feel are startlingly realistic, with on-location street shooting and gritty club scenes populated with bar girls and junkies. The quartet of thieves are bound by a code of honor and the spoils will altruistically go to family members and loved ones. The pinnacle of this stylish film is the 30-minute centerpiece of the heist itself, which is filmed in near total silence, a suspense trick Dassin later used less successfully in Topkapi. It's an artfully staged sequence, marked by its detailed planning and creative tools. Dassin also appears as one of the thieves. This restored print with updated slang subtitles is a treat for anyone who professes to even a mild interest in film noir. A movie like Reservoir Dogs could not exist without Rififi.