Touchez Pas au Grisbi

Max, an ageing gangster, plans to retire on the gold from his last big job. When his partner lets something slip, a young and reckless rival moves in and Max has to return to the life he wanted to leave. The film is not interested in the heist. It is interested in tiredness: in its most famous scene two men eat bread and cheese in pyjamas in the middle of the night. What is being told is not action but the end of a friendship and of a trade. The form is calm and observational. Jacques Becker foregrounds slang, nightclubs and everyday detail, and keeps the violence short. The source is Albert Simonin's novel; Becker, Simonin and Maurice Griffe wrote the screenplay. Its most concrete effect was on careers. Jean Gabin was considered a spent force at the time and this film put him back at the centre, turning the fifty-year-old's weariness directly into the role. Lino Ventura faced a camera for the first time here, as the young rival Angelo. Jeanne Moreau was also at the start of her career. The film was a large hit in France and opened a new gangster vein from which Rififi, Bob le Flambeur and Le Samouraï would come. Who it is for: viewers who love French noir, Gabin, and quiet gangster stories. Who it is not for: anyone wanting pace. The film moves for long stretches with nothing happening and saves its violence for the end.