Tonight the Noir City Film Festival screens Jules Dassin’s classic crime drama Du rififi chez les homes, aka Rififi for the second time in three years. It’s appropriate, though, since Dassin was the noir master behind Night and the City, Thieves’ Highway, The Naked City, and Brute Force. Based on Auguste Le Breton’s novel, Rifiifi came in 1955 after Dassin’s work had been absent from Hollywood screens for five years—a break brought about due to his blacklisting by the anti commie crowd. Dassin made Rififi in France and reminded Hollywood exactly what they had lost.
We first meet the character Tony le Stéphanois in a poker game where he’s lost his shirt. The other players won’t let him continue without more cash, and that’s how we meet his close friend Jo, who’s called in to take Tony home. Tony is a big time criminal fresh out of prison and down on his luck, while Jo is a green young crook. Jo and his accomplice Mario have hatched a plan to cut the glass out of a jewelry store window and steal the few gems in the display, and they ask Tony to partner with them.
Our introduction to this trio makes them all seem sympathetic, but this Tony is a bad guy. When does that become crystal clear? When he whips his ex-girlfriend with a belt. Which beyond its literal significance also seems to indicate that people around Tony get hurt generally. He soon convinces Jo and Mario that their smash-and-grab idea is peanuts, and under his influence the plan grows into a full scale heist—one of the most memorable heist sequences in cinema, containing almost no dialogue, and running close to half an hour of screen time.
If you’ve never seen the film you may be wondering what exactly is “rififi”? A name? A place? The idea is explained in detail to a nightclub audience in a highly entertaining number by Magali Noël, because even French audiences of the day didn’t know what it meant. We could tell you what Noël sang about it, but what would be the fun in that? If you want to know you’ll have to watch the movie.
