Rififi

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Movie
German title Rififi
Original title You rififi chez les hommes
Country of production France
original language French , Italian
Publishing year 1955
length 115 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (formerly 16/18)
Rod
Director Jules Dassin
script Jules Dassin
René Wheeler
Auguste Le Breton
production René Gaston Vuattoux
music Georges Auric
camera Philippe Agostini
cut Roger Dwyre
occupation
  • Jean Servais : Tony le Stéphanois
  • Carl Möhner : Jo le Suedois
  • Robert Manuel : Mario Ferrati
  • Jules Dassin: César le Milanais (as Perlo Vita )
  • Janine Darcey : Louise, Jo's wife
  • Magali Noël : night club singer Viviane
  • Claude Sylvain: Ida, Mario Ferrati's wife
  • Marcel Lupovici: Pierre Grutter, boss of the Grutter gang
  • Robert Hossein : Rémy Grutter
  • Pierre Grasset: Louis Grutter
  • Marie Sabouret : Mado, Tony's former lover
  • Dominique Maurin: Tonio, Jo's son

Rififi (Original title: Du rififi chez les hommes ("Riot among men")) is a French crime film from 1955 shotin black and white . Directed by the American Jules Dassin , who hadmade a name forhimself with film noirs such as The Naked City , Brute Force and Night and the City . The score wascomposedby Georges Auric .

content

Rififi tells the story of the recently released prisoner Tony who, together with a gang of an old friend, carries out a daring safe robbery. The company succeeds, but in the subsequent argument with a competing gang, all protagonists are killed.

action

Paris: The gentle Tony sat for five years for burglary. He has not betrayed his young partner Jo. Jo wants to go on a quick raid in a jewelry store with his Italian buddies Mario and Tony. Tony initially refuses. He meets his ex-lover Mado again, who is now with the criminal nightclub owner Grutter. Tony is deeply hurt by this and is therefore at war with Grutter. Tony changes his mind about a robbery, but wants to turn the big thing: a nighttime break-in at the jewelry store and the stealing of the entire contents of the safe. He organizes the preparation: In London, a fence is first contacted. An Italian safe-cracking specialist, César, is hired. He, who has just arrived in Paris, falls in love with the nightclub singer Viviane, who works for Grutter. César also visits the jeweler disguised as a customer and spies on the shop. The gang buys an alarm system and trains them how to manipulate it. When the preparations are complete, the four of them take action. They capture the caretaker and his wife who live above the jewelry store. They tie and gag the couple and very carefully begin to drill their way through the floor, as the jeweler has an alarm system that registers vibrations. You rope down into the shop, manipulate the alarm system with a fire extinguisher and bypass the circuit of the same. Then they drill open the safe and remove the contents. César takes another ring, the location of which he discovered when he visited a jeweler.

The gang barely escapes two curious police officers and keeps the jewelry with Mario. Tony admonishes the others to be inconspicuous and not to spend too much. The robbery soon made big headlines and the police offered a high reward to the gang. The police also mentioned the reward to Grutter. César spends a night of love with his dream woman Viviane and gives her the stolen ring. When Grutter sees the ring on her finger, he adds one and two up: César is a friend of Mario, Jo and Tony. Tony just sat for five years for burglary. Grutter captures César and tortures him. This betrays the gang and the Grutters appear at Mario. They also torture him and his wife, but without finding out where the jewelry is stored. Mario's wife can warn Tony over the phone before she and her husband are killed. The Grutter gang takes Jo's son hostage and hides in an unfinished house outside the city center. Jo and Tony convert the jewelry into money. Tony searches for the Grutters and finds César tied up in the nightclub basement. Since he has endangered the gang because of his stupidity, Tony kills him, following the rules of the gangsters. Through Mado, Tony can find out the whereabouts of the Grutter gang. There is a showdown. Tony frees son Jos and kills two Grutters. When he wants to bring his son back to Jo, he learns that he has driven to the abandoned house with the money and hurries back; there Grutter kills Jo, and Tony kills Grutter, who previously injured him badly. The dying Tony drives with Jo's son and the suitcase to Jo's wife and dies. The police discovered the suitcase of money in his car.

effect

The film is considered to be a style setting for the genre of heist movies or caper movies. The most important scene, the break- in of a jewelry store on Rue de Rivoli , is 32 minutes long (shorter in other versions) and contains no dialogue or music. Director Dassin appears under the pseudonym Perlo Vita in the role of the safe breaker César le Milanais.

The film is considered a classic representative of French film noir or gangster film . The American critic Roger Ebert lists him in his Greatest Movies .

Dassin had the French original novel translated into English, wrote the script in English (although he said he weakened the latent racism of the original) and had it translated back into French. Ironically, this film, which kicked off Dassin's European career, was originally intended to be directed by Jean-Pierre Melville .

François Truffaut called Rififi the best detective film he has ever seen (it is based on what he added is the worst novel he has ever read). Dassin's inspiration was to extend the break-in, which takes up less space in the book, into a scene that takes up a quarter of the length of the film and does not need any words or music. The depiction was so meticulously accurate and detailed that the Paris police allegedly wanted to ban the film because they feared that it would amount to an instruction.

Admission in Germany

The FSK working committee examined the film in July 1955. First of all, the examiners determined that the mutual annihilation of the gangsters served justice. However, the committee dealt at length with the question of whether the film could encourage imitation. It was concluded that, on the one hand , Rififi offered nothing new for professional criminals, while on the other hand, the special equipment and methods were too complicated for amateurs. The committee approved the film without cuts from the age of 16, which was the upper limit at the time.

Rififi was shown in German cinemas from October 1955 and was initially only praised. On January 20, 1956, however, the evening newspaper published a report entitled Film triggers a break-in wave , on January 21/22. January 1956 the SZ : "Rififi" and the consequences , the Hofer Anzeiger on January 24, 1956: Lessons in burglary . There were reports of amateurish amateurs who tried to break into safes, following the example of the film. On February 4, 1956, the headline of the Münchner Illustrierte was: Rififi goes to school - a film as a teacher with pictures of a gang of schoolchildren from Essen who had invaded a restaurant “à la Rififi”.

The MP Wenzel Köhler (GB / BHE) then asked in the Bavarian state parliament how the state government intended to “protect our youth from such character-spoiling films”. Interior Minister August Geislhöringer (BP) replied that the state's hands were tied here. However, the voluntary self-regulation should not have released the film. The Free State has therefore been calling for a year and a day to raise the upper limit for youth approval to at least 18 years.

For weeks the press reported on other Rififi crimes, such as For example: "Rififi" burglary went wrong ", Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger of April 9, 1956 and" Rififi "versus" Rififi "" in Düsseldorfer Nachrichten of May 12, 1956. The evangelical film commissioner Werner Hess declared on April 1 , 1956 . March 1956 on Bayerischer Rundfunk , they finally have proof of the role model effect of crime films, all of which must be banned in the future. The SPIO rejected the Bavarian Interior Minister's allegations against the FSK on March 2, 1956.

Awards

Rififi competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955 , where Jules Dassin shared the directing award with Sergei Vasilyev ( Geroite na Shipka ). A year later, the Film noir was awarded the Prix ​​Méliès for best film by the Association Française de la Critique de Cinéma , while lead actor Jean Servais received the Étoile de Cristal for best actor. Almost 45 years after its premiere, the New York Film Critics Circle honored the film with two special awards in 2000.

Overview

Remarks

The expression “à la Rififi” or “in Rififi manner” is based on this film and describes a break-in into a protected room through its ceiling (or floor) in order to rob a safe or something similar unnoticed. The original meaning in French can be paraphrased as “dispute”, “noise”, “(violent) argument”. The film title refers to the final dispute between the competing gangs and is taken up in the refrain of the song “Le Rififi” (text: Jacques Larue ), which singer Viviane ( Magali Noël ) performs in the nightclub.

Dassin shot the crime comedy Topkapi nine years later , also a heist film in which the crooks do not break into the floor above, as in Rififi , but through the roof.

Reference in other films

In My Aunt - Your Aunt (1956), a parody, a trio led by Oskar Sima tries to get into the bank below through an apartment that is rented in women’s clothes. An episode of the Italian film Susanna, sweet as cream (1957) is about three men breaking into a jewelry store in a similar way. In the safe, however, there is a note from the owner stating that he too had seen the film Rififi and that he therefore takes the most valuable pieces home with him every day. The comedy Als healed released (1959) with the duo Wolfgang Neuss / Wolfgang Müller also leaned on Rififi .

See also

literature

  • Jürgen Kniep: “No youth approval!”. Film censorship in West Germany 1949–1990 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0638-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b rogerebert.com: Rififi
  2. ↑ Jürgen Kniep: No youth approval! , P. 188