Directed by Jules Dassin
Review by Shannon Scott Stebbins
A few years ago I bought a ticket and some popcorn. The French film Rififi was playing at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. A nebbish film junkie friend had insisted I see this movie. The Music Box opened in 1929 and can seat 800 people. It looks like an old Vaudevillian house, with a bulging marquee and grand interior. An old piano plays as moviegoers take their seats. Films stop halfway through and a post-Depression type cartoon encourages viewers to use the restroom and get some snacks. It is a walk back in time. Like Rififi. It was a fitting atmosphere for watching arguably one of the greatest heist films in history. I revisited Rififi recently from the confines of my couch and the impact of this film hasn’t diminished.
Jules Dassin was an apprentice of Alfred Hitchcock. He was on his last leg when, in Paris, he directed Rififi. He had established himself in Hollywood as a viable force, having directed the Academy Award winning “The Naked City” in 1948. However, in 1951, fellow movie director Edward Dmytryk ratted Dassin out to a congressional committee for alleged ties to the Communist Party. In a 2002 interview with The Guardian in London, Dassin said, “You grow up in Harlem where there’s trouble getting fed and keeping families warm, and live very close to Fifth Avenue, which is elegant. You fret, you get ideas, seeing a lot of poverty around you, and it’s a very natural process.” Turned off by a pact between the Soviet Union and Hitler, he left the party in 1939.
On the 2001 DVD release of Rififi by The Criterion Collection, Dassin, 89, recounts his Blackballing in an interview. Blacklist is too politically correct. While attending Cannes Film Festival not long after the congressional testimony, Dassin was shunned by all of the American attendees. They would not look at him, at one point some even clamored beneath tables. In a show of loyalty, Gene Kelly refused to ignore his old friend and strode the red carpet with the outcast filmmaker.
Dassin tried to direct a film in Rome in the early 50’s but was denied. His movies, however, did well in France. A producer courted him to adapt a best selling novel, “Du rififi chez les hommes” by newcomer Auguste le Breton. Dassin was against it. The book had a zesty gangster theme. It also contained necrophilia and racism. But Dassin was desperate and penned a script from the book in six days. As Dassin tells it meeting the author was an ensuing deal right out of a gangster film. Breton, referring to the screenplay version of his novel, looked across the table and asked, “Where is my book?” Dassin gave him a stock “this is my vision” reply. The author leaned in and asked again, “Where is my book?” Again, Dassin gave a canned answer. The author pulled out a pistol and put it on the table and asked his question for a third time. Dassin laughed in his face. The author hugged him and they became long lasting friends.
There is an old proverb, “Don’t speak unless you can improve the silence.” Dassin took these words to heart upon directing Rififi. A quarter of the film contains no dialogue. Much has been made about the 25-minute scene without music or a spoken word, when the thieves begin their descent through a bank ceiling to grab precious jewels. Directors, including Brian DePalma and Quentin Tarantino, have emulated this style in their own films. Dassin recalls the producer and composer insisting that if no dialogue accompanied the scene, music must be present. Dassin asked both men to watch the scene with music and without. The composer, after watching the heist play out in silence, with beads of sweat mounting on the crooks’ faces and tension permeating the air, agreed music would ruin the scene.
Dassin used a small budget to scrape together a cast of relative unknowns. Even Jean Servais, who played the lead character, had been out of work for years. When the actor who was to play Cesar le Milanais dropped out days before shooting was to begin, Dassin grew a mustache and took on the role himself. The character only spoke Italian throughout the film. He is credited as Perlo Vita. The four robbers in Rififi are perfectly cast. There is a difference between the cool factor – Ocean’s Eleven anyone? – and being cool. The crew in this film make cool blush.
Inserting silence in the film was not Dassin’s only stroke of genius. To the producer’s dismay Dassin wanted to shoot the film primarily at night and on cloudy days, while the visually appealing city had its cheek turned. His use of lighting with dark tones and shadows heightened the film noir genre. Attention to details and bank heist precision were so authentic the Mexican government banned Rififi from theaters soon after it’s release, due to copycat robbers influenced by the film.
The film’s title is turned into song, sung by Viviane, who is played by Magali Noël. She seduces the crowd and explains that all the “chicks want Rififi”, which means “rough and tumble”, which refers to the allure of macho gangsters. Noël would later go on to become Fellini’s sexy seductress in several of his masterpieces.
Dassin stars as Cesar le Milanais. In a poignant scene he is killed for ratting out his friends. Dassin said he used the pain from being blacklisted and his own Hollywood friends’ betrayal as motivation for the scene. He not only got revenge in his film. Rififi went on to become a smash hit, and Dassin made a triumphant return to the United States.
Dassin, who died April 1, improved silence by bringing an unwavering, passionate voice to the screen.
