![]() Then he contacts Max and tells him that he can have Riton back if he delivers the gold to him. Just days after the trade with the dealer is arranged another seasoned gangster, Angelo (Lino Ventura, Classe Tous Risques),ĭiscovers that Max has the stolen gold and orders his goons to kidnap Riton while he is enjoying the company of his favorite prostitute, Josy (Jeanne Morreau, Elevator to the Gallows). Max has frequently urged Riton to start acting his age, but his pal hasn't been able to break his bad habits and he has accepted that he would have to do his best to watch after him like an elder brother. But despite his age Riton simply cannot stop behaving like a prisoner who has not been with a woman for years - he is constantly out and enjoying the company of beautiful prostitutes who love money even more than he does. All they have to do now is wait for the smoke to blow over and when the time is right trade the four cases with the stolen gold bullion bars for cash. The aging gangster Max (Jean Gabin, Le Jour se Lève) and his best pal Riton (Rene Dary, Les Risques du métier) have pulled off a brilliant heist and are ready to retire. In Touchez Pas au Grisbi the style is everything. It is not the story, it is not the drama or the action. In fact, this is precisely the reason Touchez Pas au Grisbi is a great film. Some films try really, really hard to be cool, and some, like Jacques Becker's Touchez Pas au Grisbi, simply are. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film new video interview with assistant director Jean Becker archival interview with actress Jeanne Moreau video interview with professor Ginette Vincendeau and new audio commentary by critic Nick Pinkerton. "Don't Touch the Loot" (1954) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. Jacques Becker's "Touchez Pas au Grisbi" a.k.a. Jacques Becker’s 1954 heist thriller Touchez pas au grisbi was the comeback he needed, and it propelled him into a successful second act, which lasted until his death in 1976.Reviewed by Dr. Following a brief, less successful stint in Hollywood and a period of fighting with the Allies in North Africa during World War II, Gabin saw his film career slow down, and he appeared mostly in supporting roles for a while (including in Ophuls’s Le plaisir). ” Soon after Pépé, Renoir’s antiwar masterpiece Grand Illusion hit, and it was an even bigger smash, cementing Gabin’s superstar status in this and all of his most successful roles ( La bête humaine, Le jour se lève), Gabin played some form of working-class social outcast, and he always provided audiences with a strong point of identification. As Michael Atkinson has written for Criterion, “Without its iconic precedent, there would have been no Humphrey Bogart, no John Garfield, no Robert Mitchum, no Randolph Scott, no Jean-Paul Belmondo (or Breathless or Pierrot le fou), no Jean-Pierre Melville or Alain Delon, no Steve McQueen. His work with director Julien Duvivier would prove his most important: they collaborated on two successful films in the midthirties ( Maria Chapdelaine and La bandera), but it was their third, Pépé le moko, that, in creating the romantic criminal antihero archetype, shot Gabin into the stratosphere. This led to roles in silent films, but it was with the advent of sound that Gabin found his true calling-even if his quiet stoicism was what he would become best known for. He eventually followed in his family’s footsteps, though, appearing onstage at various Paris music halls and theaters, including the Moulin Rouge. Though his parents were cabaret performers, Gabin-born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in 1904-put off show business at first, working instead as a laborer for a construction company. With his penetrating gaze, quiet strength, and unshakeable everyman persona, Jean Gabin was the most popular French matinee idol of the prewar period, and remains one of the great icons of cinema.
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