Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954) – J. Becker

This film just gets better and better as you age.  Jean Gabin was 50 when he played the world-weary gangster ready to retire after the big heist – retirement might be a few years away for me but it isn’t hard to identify with Gabin here.  Director Jacques Becker (assistant to Renoir in the ‘30s) defies the clichés to show us the gangsters in their downtime, between the action sequences.  Max (Gabin) and his partner Riton (René Dary) are viewed like an old married couple, overly familiar, aware of each other’s flaws, neglectful at times but affectionate deep down.  There’s a funny scene where they hide out at a secret apartment that Max uses when the heat is on (or in this case when rival gangster Angelo, played by Lina Ventura, is looking to work them over to find the “grisbi” or loot); we see them eating, brushing their teeth, getting ready for bed – it’s all quite domestic.  Riton is being scolded for having told his girl (a young Jeanne Moreau, playing a dancer) about the heist and thereby letting Ventura (now her new beau) in on it.  Nevertheless, he can’t help himself from doing the wrong thing and contacting her again – leading to even more trouble when he is captured.  Gabin plays Max as stoically as you can (and none of the tough guys here is expressive), but you can tell he is over it all – he just wants to wrap up this last job and live the elegant good life.  Instead, he is drawn back in, having to play the role of fixer yet again – until it all turns to shit, as it always does in this sort of film.  Becker shoots the Paris streets with a travelling camera and they look great in black and white – but the overall feel is steady and measured, even in the penultimate action scene (the one moment of violence in the film).  I listened to critic Adrian Martin’s audio commentary this time and I highly recommend it and (of course) the film.