Rififi was filmed by director Jules Dassin after he fled America and headed to Europe. He made it in 1956 and it was filmed in the streets of Paris. This collection has been digitally transferred by Criterion and the quality of the picture is stunning.

The movie has Jean Servais who plays Tony le Stephanois who is an aging crook. He has recently been released from prison after serving five years. It doesn’t take him long to return to his old ways and he teams up with two other crooks to pull off a jewellery robbery.

Actually, it went into so much detail of exactly how to pull off the robbery that the film was banned in several countries due to the fear that people would actually repeat it in real life!

The entire robbery sequence lasts for more than 30 minutes and has no dialogue whatsoever. The are superb performances by Marie Sabouret who plays Tony’s girlfriend and even the director Dassin cast himself for the role of a safe cracker who is a hit with the ladies.

Dassin made several movies in America before making Rififi, such as The Naked City and Brute Force but they were no where near as acclaimed as this one. He even won the Best Director prize at the Cannes film festival for it. The movie is a huge collection of suspense, humour and brutal all rolled into one.

There were some great film noir movies but none expressed as much as Rififi. It has a great cast, wonderful storyline and was directed superbly by Dassin. This is a real must have movie that can be enjoyed time and again.