BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1956)

One of a deluge of caper pics made in the wake of Jules Dassin’s game changing RIFIFI/’55, this early Jean-Pierre Melville film sees his signature touch come into focus.*  Filmed in drips & drabs over two-years as funds became available, its long production likely kept it from beating RIFIFI to the screen.  Those rickety finances also explaining some merely serviceable actors, though not elder statesman/leading man Roger Duchesne off-screen for over a decade; sexy teen Isabelle Corey spotted on the streets; and many others not the usual suspects.  The story is straightforward: High-Roller Bob, an ex-con on an epic losing streak, is tempted to rob Deauville Casino with a bespoke gang and some inside info.  Warned on all sides (even by a sympathetic cop) to drop the idea, you think you know where Melville is going here . . . but you don’t.  The young kid Bob mentors (an excellent Daniel Cauchy) blabs to teen tart Corey who then spills all to a former pal, now a police informer.  But this bit of typical film noir misogyny comes with a twist that takes the stink off it.  Same for Bob, losing himself in the run of his life at the gambling tables of Deauville just as the caper goes into motion.  It should ruin him.  Yet there’s saving grace in there as well.  Melville playing his cards very close to the vest.  Shot in varied monochromatic moods by the great Henri Decaë (with more Melville ahead for him), you’d never guess the stop/start nature of production.  Know where to place the camera and everything coheres.  It plays like Melville in training wheels, but takes you where he wants to go.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: Duchesne’s role might have been written for Jean Gabin, but the dicey on-and-off work schedule hadn’t a chance of attracting him.  Plus, he’d just done something similar for Jacques Becker in TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI/’54, with this film’s Daniel Cauchy.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Put it this way.  Halfway in, one of the gang reaches out to a former accomplice, now a Casino employee, threatening blackmail if he doesn’t ‘give’ with inside info.  Only then does he mention a ƒ500 honorarium.   Suddenly, a lightbulb switches on above the ex-con’s head, ‘Ahh, so I’m being paid.’