“Rififi” loosely defined as “a rumble among men” or “trouble/violent conflict/show of force” is a 1955 French movie directed by Jules Dassin after he was black listed in Hollywood. The film is based on a portion of a novel by Auguste Le Brenton. Starring Jean Servais as the lead character “Tony” and the other members of the heist crew, Carl Möhner as “Jo”, Robert Manuel as “Mario” and the director himself in the role of “Cesar”, who apparently was paid the equivalent of $8,000 for the roles of Director, Writer, and Actor. The money was extremely well spent as this is considered by many one of the best crime/heist film noir films of all time. Mr. Dassin won the Best Director prize at Cannes in 1995. And the film was nominated for the National Board of Review for Best Foreign Film. The influence this film has on subsequent heist films is clear. Bob also recommends watching “The Asphalt Jungle” for another tightly directed and acted noir crime/heist film that may have had an influence on “Rififi”. We both really enjoyed the movie and would place it near the top of our list as one of the best films we’ve seen.

Just a reminder that we discuss the ending of the films we review and we definitely would spoil the plot for anyone that hasn’t seen the film. So, if you want to watch the film spoiler free and haven’t seen the film, we recommend watching it before listening to the podcasts.

Up next our festival of films made outside of the United States continues with “Zatoichi Challenged”

Here’s the IMDB page for “Rififi”