Bob le Flambeur ***** (1955, dir Jean-Pierre Melville) Classic Movie Review 1390

Both co-writer/director Jean-Pierre Melville and star Roger Duchesne knew the underworld at first hand, and it clearly shows here in their classic hardboiled 1955 French crime thriller, which provided inspiration for the French New Wave films soon to come back then.

This magnetic, archetypal tale of the ageing, desperate, near-broke gangster and gambler-thief Bob planning a risky heist on a gambling casino in Deauville spills over with mounting tension and credible, mesmerising low-life atmosphere. Everything about the robbery is exactly planned, but the police (René Havard as Inspecteur Morin) are informed about the raid. Bob starts to gamble in the casino…

The movie is still fresh and exciting thanks to Melville and Auguste Le Breton’s fine screenplay with its excellent plotting and believable characters, Duchesne’s cool performance as the title’s Bob Montagné, vivid location filming at Pigalle in Paris and Deauville, Eddie Barclay and Jean Boyer’s throbbing music score, the hectic pace of Melville’s direction and brilliant cinematographer Henri Decaë’s frenzied black and white camerawork.

Duchesne’s ideal as the ageing gambler battling his long-running losing streak, Daniel Cauchy shines as his cocky young protege Paolo and Isabelle Corey is scintillating as Anne, the young woman involved with them.

‘It is not only a police thriller, but also a comedy of manners,’ Melville  said teasingly.

It was remade by director Neil Jordan as The Good Thief in the US in 2002, with Nick Nolte.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1390

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