Commercially reestablished in post-war France playing a tough aging bad guy in Jacques Becker’s TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI/’54 and tough aging good guy for Jean Renoir in FRENCH CANCAN/’55, Jean Gabin was largely able to coast on his renewed reputation over the next two decades. Stout, impassive, he found dramatic heft in his Buddha-like presence; authority thru seniority in roles on either side of the law. In this typical example under journeyman director Gilles Grangier, Gabin leads daring daylight robberies with a gang he runs out of his legit garage business, staying above the fray of their petty squabbles to divide the loot between Lino Ventura’s trigger-happy thug, a scaredy-cat facilitator, and a centime counting enforcer upset that an equal share goes to the tip-off man. Meanwhile, home-life is complicated by a brother with low taste in women (currently Annie Giradot’s ‘tart’) and a mother’s concern for her boy. (Something of a stretch when you look as prematurely aged as the 53-yr-old Gabin did.) Grangier’s work improves whenever he gets outside on real locations, but the third act climax, a robbery gone wrong when someone (the brother?) tips off the cops, lurches into blood-thirsty violence unprepared by the rest of the film. It feels forced. A reasonably suspenseful ride-to-the-rescue ending helps some, but the film is definitely sausage factory product. (On the other hand, sausage very good in France.)
DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI, the masterful template for this.
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