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Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

As defined in American Cinema/American Culture by John Belton, film noir "refers to a style of filmmaking that flourished between 1941 and 1958, presents narratives involving crime or criminal actions in a manner that disturbs, disorients, or otherwise induces anxiety in the viewer." Nowhere is this more evident than in the 1955 Jules Dassin film, Rififi, which was recently shown at Tivoli Cinemas as part of a Film Noir series done in conjunction with the UMKC Department of Communication Studies.

Broke and haggard-looking after spending five years in prison, Tony (Jean Servais) is approached by his friends Jo (Carl Möhner) and Mario (Robert Manual) to steal jewels from a jewelry store show-window. Tony refuses and instead finds his ex-lover Mado (Marie Sabouret), who left him to become the girlfriend of drug dealing nightclub owner Louis Grutter (Pierre Grasset). Tony forces her back to their old apartment and beats her hard enough to leave scars.

After throwing Mado out, Tony does decide to burglarize the jewelry store's safe. He, Jo and Mario, with the addition of Cesar (Dassin) an Italian specialist in safes, take painstaking efforts to map every detail of their heist, which is hindered by a state-of-the-art alarm system. Everything goes according to plan until Cesar gives away a piece of the stolen jewelry to a singer at Grutter's nightclub.

For Rififi, Jules Dassin (1911-2008) received a Best Director award at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. He grew up in Harlem and started as a stage actor before switching to directing and writing. In the 1930's he became a Communist, but left the party in 1939 after becoming disillusioned by the Non-Aggression Pact signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In 1940 he moved to Hollywood where he made Brute Force (1947) with Burt Lancaster, The Naked City (1948), and Night and the City (1950) with Richard Widmark.

Dassin's career in America came to an end in 1952 when he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee for his past association with communism. In 1953 Dassin moved to France where he struggled for several years. Eventually, he was welcomed again in the U.S. and was nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay in 1961 for Never on Sunday.

Spoken in French with English subtitles, Rififi is a tense crime drama that lives up to the definition set forth by Belton. However, it is easy to tell that it was made on a small budget with a cast, excepting Servais and Möhner, that either had little dramatic training or were just poor actors. The characters of Mario and Cesar are often played with too much buffoonery, and there is a musical number set in the club that is nothing less than ridiculous.

Despite its negatives, Dassin's triumph is that he managed to squeeze every last drop of talent that he could out of his cast. Furthermore, he captured brilliantly every last bead of sweat and dirt smear to help build a level of gripping suspense rarely attained by filmmakers.

Rififi is not Citizen Kane, but it is the father of all heist-driven films since. Once you've seen Rififi, it's hard to imagine an Ocean's Eleven, Mission Impossible or Sneakers without it.

On a letter grade scale from A being excellent to F for failing, Rififi receives an A-.
    
Rififi is unrated and has a running time of 118 minutes.

There are four films left in the Film Noir series @
Tivoli Cinemas
Westport Manor Square
4050 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, MO
Visit www.tivolikc.com or call 913-383-7756 for more information.

Obsession, Italy, 1943, BW, 140 minutes
6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 16

Pépé le moko, France, 1956, BW, 102 minutes
6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 18

Diabolique, France, 1954, BW, 116 minutes
6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 23

Night and the City, USA, 1950, BW, 101 minutes
6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 25

By Michael D. Smith

Indie Film Editor

Michael D. Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts in history at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri followed by a Master of Arts in history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Inspired by such critics as Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, Michael started reviewing films in 1992 for College of the Ozarks's student-run newspaper. After returning to the Kansas City area in 1994, he continued film reviewing by writing for the Cass County Democrat Missourian in Harrisonville.

In 2000 Michael joined Sun Publications in Overland Park, Kansas where he served as its film critic and Arts and Entertainment Editor. During his tenure there, he was also the film critic for the "Fine Arts Radio Hour" and "Celebrity Scoop" radio shows on KXTR. After leaving the Sun in late 2002, he became the A&E writer for the Olathe News in Olathe, Kansas. He also worked as a freelance writer for The Squire in Leawood, Showcase Publishing in Lake Ozark, Missouri and the Kansas City Star.

Michael is currently a member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, a professional film critic organization established in 1966 by the late Dr. James Loutzenhiser.