Rififi

Du rififi chez les hommes (1955)

Timing: 1:58 (118 min)

7.775/10
630

7.713/10
3583

8.1/10
39000

All about film

Video 3

Photo 32

Actors and characters

Release date

1955-04-13

Country

France

Production

Indusfilms, Société Nationale Pathé Cinéma, Prima Films

Genre

Crime, Thriller, Drama

Budget

$200 000

Revenue

$460 226

Website

Director

Jules Dassin

Actors

Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Janine Darcey, Pierre Grasset, Robert Hossein, Marcel Lupovici, Dominique Maurin, Magali Noël, Marie Sabouret
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Henri Bérard, René Bezard, Pierre Cabaud

Operator

Philippe Agostini

Composer

Georges Auric

Artist

Audition

Editing

Roger Dwyre
All team (44)

• The film is based on the novel of the same name by Auguste Le Breton.
• In 2000, a restored version of the film was successfully released in American cinemas.
• Before Dassin was approved as director, it was assumed that Jean-Pierre Melville would direct the film.
• The film was shot on a tiny budget with second-rate actors. Jean Servais, who suffered from alcoholism, was chosen for the role of the fallen gangster; the director himself took on the role of Caesar. Despite the producers' objections, Dassin insisted on abandoning fight scenes (which no French crime film could do without at the time) and shooting in sunlight ('everything must be gray,' he explained).
• In the US, the film encountered censorship difficulties; it was said that the scenes of violence were excessive. After a moralizing epigraph from the Bible was added to the film, it was released in the American market and enjoyed great success there. Dassin became the first person to successfully break free from the Hollywood blacklist without losses.
• At the same time, some countries banned the film from being shown as a kind of textbook for thieves. For example, in Mexico, it was announced that the film had spawned a whole wave of jewelry store robberies.
• The film contains several scenes that have become part of the golden fund of world cinema – the half-hour scene of the robbery of a jewelry store on Rivoli Street, filmed with maximum realism, in complete silence; the sensual performance of Magali Noël in front of men in a nightclub; the death agony of the main character behind the wheel of a car.
• 'Rififi' is the first film in 5 years by American director Jules Dassin, exiled from Hollywood during the McCarthy era. Dassin was ostracized from his profession due to the slander of his own colleagues. Echoes of his bitterness can be felt in the scene of Tony’s revenge on Caesar (ironically played by Dassin himself). This scene, absent from the novel, was introduced into the film at the director’s insistence.
• The film was shot on a tiny budget with second-rate actors. Jean Servais, who suffered from alcoholism, was chosen for the role of the fallen gangster; the director himself took on the role of Caesar. Despite the producers' objections, Dassen insisted on abandoning fight scenes (which were unavoidable in French crime films at the time) and shooting in sunlight ("everything must be gray," he explained).
• "Rififi" is the first film in 5 years by American director Jules Dassin, exiled from Hollywood during the McCarthy era. Dassin was ostracized from his profession on the slander of his own colleagues. Echoes of his bitterness can be felt in the scene where Tony deals with Caesar (who, ironically, was played by Dassin himself). This scene, absent from the novel, was introduced into the film at the director's insistence.