Bob le flambeur (1956)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Jean-Pierre Melville

Writers:

Auguste Le Breton (dialogue)
Auguste Le Breton (writer)

Release Date:

25 April 1958 (West Germany)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

Bob, a old gangster and gambler is almost broke, so he decides in spite of the warnings of a friend...

Plot Keywords:

Casino | Police | Gambler | Robbery | Deauville

Cast

Isabelle Corey	...	Anne
Daniel Cauchy	...	Paolo
Roger Duchesne	...	Robert 'Bob' Montagné
André Garet	...	Roger
Gérard Buhr	...	Marc
Guy Decomble	...	Commissaire Ledru
Claude Cerval	...	Jean, le croupier
Howard Vernon	...	McKimmie, le commanditaire
Colette Fleury	...	Suzanne, la femme de Jean
Simone Paris	...	Yvonne
René Havard	...	Inspecteur Morin
Germaine Licht	...	La concierge
Jean-Marie Rivière	...	P'tit Louis, un gangster
Chris Kersen	...	Un gangster (as Kris Kersen)
Henry Allaume	...	Un gangster (as Allaume)

Also Known As:

Bob the Gambler
Fever Heat (USA)
Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob the Gambler (Australia)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Organisation Générale Cinématographique

Trivia:

Considered a precursor to the French New Wave films that start in 1959

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Bob goes to ask for money to the race horse owner, you can clearly see the shadow of the camera on the ground.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in À bout de souffle (1960)

Bob le galant

BOB THE GAMBLER (Jean-Pierre Melville - France 1955).

Bob le Flambeur is a man of honour, an easy-going gangster with style and etiquette. He doesn't like pimps or other low-lives with disregard for the rules of the game. He also likes to help out young girls that are out late on the streets without disrespectful thoughts on his mind, just like Melville first spotted the young Isabelle Corey on the Place de la Madeleine.

She was only 15 years old when he decided to give her a major part in the film. Although she delivers her lines like she hasn't got a clue what she's saying, she does look absolutely stunning! One scene in which she is wearing garters is pure cinematic art. Although tame, almost cute by today's standards, this is pure erotisme coupled with high art. There is a scene where she is half naked, which - strangely enough - didn't cause a scandal in those days. Probably because nobody knew her age and French manners at the time were notoriously relaxed, but in America this must have been unthinkable and absolutely scandalous. Although the IMDb states the film was released in the U.S. in 1981, the film did get an earlier release in - I think - 1957 under a different title and did reasonably well at the box office.

The casting of Roger Duchesne is a fascinating story as well. He was quite a well-known film star before the war, but during the war he drifted into a life of crime and left acting, because the Parisian underworld forced him to leave Paris because of his debts. Since Melville wanted him for his film, he applied to the mob and they allowed Duchesne to come back. According to Melville in a 1970 interview, he was selling cars out near the Porte de Champerret at the time. This strange blurring of reality and fiction much resembles the fate of Alain Delon in the '60s and '70s, the star in Melville's later films LE SAMOURAI and LE CERCLE ROUGE, who was also suspected of ties with French criminal circles.

The movie takes a bit long in the beginning to establish Bob's lifestyle, but once the planning of the heist started, things get going. Don't expect great acting or fast action. The film is slow, and will undoubtedly bore the living hell out of young people today. Contrary to what many believe, this is not the godfather of the heist film or the first depiction of gangsters in French cinema. After all, Dassin's RIFIFI was released a year earlier and there was MIROIR (1946) by Raymond Lamy, but it is the first to throw all (mostly American) genre conventions in the blender and come up with a totally unique take on the genre. Much more a "Comedy of manners", as Melville put it, it focuses on the human side, gangster etiquette, and above all, the film is about his beloved Paris nightlife. His portrayal of gangster life might be romanticizing and unrealistic but - like all his films - were shot on location in Paris and do show us an atmospheric look of shabby Montmartre in the fifties.

It's important to realize this is not a portrait of Parisian gangsters in the fifties, but a throwback to prewar gangster codes. The cars, music and fashions are very much 1955, but Bob still upholds the prewar old school code. In Melville's universe, gangsters and police officers are on intimate terms. When arrested and put in the back of a police car, Bob is offered a cigarette immediately and treated with all the respect a man can wish for. If there is any film that should be considered Nouvelle Vague by today's definitions of this vaguely defined term, I consider this film to be the first. Here he carefully deconstructed all the cinematic language of American films and film noir in particular, much less conspicuously than Godard did with BREATHLESS in 1959. Melville does it in such a subtle fashion, it's difficult to see whether he presents us the real thing, a parody or a little bit of both. Whatever it is, it's a unique mix of American film language and Melville's unique cinematic sensibility.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10