Rififi Screening at: 2.30, 5.00 & 7.15 pm on More about this screening | Reviews of this screening | Previous screening | Screenings '92 to present | Home page |
Tony, played by Belgian Jean Servais, is an ageing thief, recently released from a five-year stretch in prison, and now seeking revenge on an old girlfriend Mado, who has transferred her allegiances to nightclub owner and police informant Grutter. Tony’s protégé and his pal Mario have a plan for a smash-and-grab raid on a heavily alarmed jewellery store. Tony agrees to join them, provided they target the shop’s supposedly impregnable safe. This means recruiting the dapper Milanese (played by Dassin himself), an expert safe-cracker with a weakness for women... The heist is a dazzling and suspenseful set piece: a 30-minute break-in sequence in which not a single word of dialogue is uttered. Words are not required here, nor is music. For an entire half hour Dassin has us on edge, like the best of Hitchcock crammed into one mute 30 minutes. Dassin was awarded Best Director at Cannes Film Festival (1955) for this classic film noir. |
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Jules Dassin’s low-budget French thriller Rififi was filmed in 1955. but has just been re-released. This is one of cinema’s seminal heist movies – its central robbery sequence influencing the likes of Mission: Impossible and Ocean’s Eleven.