Tonight I went over to the Armer Theater at CSUN to see a screening of a classic French crime film called "Touchez Pas Au Grisbi" (1954), directed by Jacques Becker. The title translates to "Hands Off The Loot". :) This presentation was hosted by Professor Schultheiss and was not part of what is now a Wednesday evening Cinematheque series, which I have not attended so far this semester (though I probably will at some point). Speaking of the Cinematheque, Professor Tim was not in attendance tonight, though many of the "regulars" besides myself were there, so it was a reunion of sorts as I mentioned last night.
The film itself is awesome. I had seen it once before, about ten years ago, on dvd from the Libe. The great French star Jean Gabin stars as an aging thief - the kind who pulls off heists rather than strong arm bank robberies. The Professor explained before the film that director Becker preferred to show a lot of "ordinary details" in his stories, even at the expense of plot, so at first we see the suave, immaculately groomed Gabin hanging out in clubs and restaurants, casually chatting with men who are obviously connected to crime in some way. You know the look : fancy suit, nice haircut but mookish, hardguy face. These men, one a dance hall owner, all seem to defer to Gabin because he is more sophisticated and carries himself with authority. The ladies of the dance hall all want to be his girl, even though he is edging beyond middle age (and as an aside, Gabin really was The Man. There is a book about him called "The Coolest Movie Star", and it is said that without him there would be no Humphrey Bogart).
It turns out that a few of the men who are kissing up to him have an ulterior motive. They know a secret, that Gabin is behind a recent theft of 200 pounds of gold bars from a Paris bank. He took great pains to keep the job under wraps and to hide the gold where no one would ever find it......but he didn't count on his partner letting the secret slip to the partner's girlfriend, who in turn is fooling around with the casino owner (played by a great "Hoodlum" actor named Lino Venturi). So now the casino owner knows about the gold, worth an enormous sum, but he doesn't know where it is stashed. He plans to find out, though, and he has a Mook Squad of his own - beefy French tough guys - to help him in his search.
I mentioned that Jacques Becker would rather show mundane details of life than engage in conventional A to B storytelling, so for quite a while we see the men and their various factions simply hanging out and making small talk. One scene in a Gabin hideout has him and his loose-lipped partner putting on their pajamas and taking turns brushing their teeth in the bathroom. This was apparently the Becker style of filmmaking, but his photography and editing are so lush and smooth that they compare to the "liquid film" style of Ernst Lubitch, so no matter how mundane the screen activity, it just plain Looks Great, and flows like cream.
Lest you think Becker is all Small Talk, however, just you wait. When he gets to the final thirty minutes, it is time for the previously casual and easygoing Jean Gabin to slip back into his action persona as a very dangerous and ruthless criminal. This is who he is when he is crossed, and he has been crossed by the casino owner, who has made the mistake of kidnapping Gabin's partner so that he can find out where the gold is hidden.
This results in a chase scene shot at night out in the French countryside. There is a shootout in which only the most clever and cold blooded will survive. The staging of this scene is, in my opinion, maybe the greatest of it's type in all of film noir, and I will bet you a nickle that Scorcese and Coppolla both saw it and used it for later inspiration. This scene alone makes "Touchez Pas Au Grisbi" one of the most riveting crime films ever made, and if you have not yet seen Jean Gabin (who was in many other well known French films including "Grand Illusion"), then this is the place to start. He is the ultimate "Good" Bad Guy in this film, kind to his friends and super stylish, but also 100% deadly. He also has his pick of the ladies. One, I had to look up on IMDB because she was quite striking. Her name was Marilyn Buferd, and it turned out that, besides being an actress, she was Miss America of 1946, so it figures that Gabin winds up with her in the end. ////
Two Gigantic Thumbs Up For "Grisbi", not just one of the best crime films ever made, but one of the best looking, in sumptuous black and white.
I have suggested this before, but again I will say that, if you like Noir, you should check out the many French examples. Boy can they ever make a crime film, and again, I am sure that directors like Becker and Jean-Pierre Melville were an influence on their American counterparts. ////
Tonight, for my Classical Music Pick - selected from another Top Ten Favorite Composer - I am going to choose Piano Sonata #545 by Mozart. You may know the opening melody, and for me it holds a special place, because it is one of the first pieces of music I can recall hearing, maybe even before The Beatles. We had a piano in the house (my Dad could play a bit) and I remember him going over this melody again and again at night, when it was my bedtime as perhaps a three year old. Dad loved Mozart, and while I find him more elegant than emotional, he wrote so many outstanding compositions in all areas of classical music, for every instrument and for opera as well, that it might be fair to say that, after Bach, he was the highest musical genius of the classical age.
For my very favorite piano music, I prefer something that will stir my heart a little more than Mozart does, but his elegance stands out in all of his work, and #545 remains for me a favorite melody even 56 years after I first remember hearing it. Listen to the version by Mitsuko Uchida, one of the great Mozart pianists. ////
That's all I know for tonight.
Except that I forgot to tell you about the baked tortilla chips from the other night at Pearl's. They came out pretty good, better than you would expect. I put 'em in the oven on a baking sheet at 350 for fifteen minutes. No oil, of course, because that would defeat my purpose of trying to cut down on fats. Just cut up corn tortillas, no other ingredients. I ate 'em with salsa, and they were a little bit hard, not as crispy as they would be if fried, but really the difference in crunch was worth it because the taste was superb. Baking brings out the lime taste in the Trader Joe's tortillas, and they taste "restaurant style" this way, when you bake 'em. I made two trays full, and will keep doing so at least when I am at Pearl's house which is most of the time. I mention this only in the name of heart health and cutting excess fat, even the "good kind", of which I was likely consuming too much.
So now, that is really all I know for tonight! See you in the morning with much love in between.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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