Groundbreaking 'Grisbi' is quite a caper

Before there was Jules Dassin's "Rififi," there was Jacques Becker's "Touchez pas au Grisbi." That's not just chronology, it's a reminder that the best way to approach Becker's 1954 French noir classic is to remember that its spare and sneakily efficient frames were building blocks for some of the most acclaimed hard-boiled heist films of its day -- none more masterful than 1955's "Rififi" -- not to mention generations of flashier-if-not-always-better films that followed.

Every filmmaker from Francois Truffaut to Quentin Tarantino owes something of a debt to Becker's black-and-white boldness, so it follows that film fans owe it to themselves not to miss big-screen rereleases of Becker's triumphs, even in the middle of a wicked January cold snap.

Roughly translated, "Touchez pas au Grisbi" means "don't touch the loot." But in literal terms, this film version of Albert Simonin's blockbuster really couldn't care less who ends up with the cash. For Becker (yes, filmmaker Jean Becker's father), it's basically all about friendship, aging, and the odd psychology of those who live outside the law.

Max (Jean Gabin), a graying gentleman gangster with dreams of retiring somewhere far from unrefined thugs and molls, has pulled off the proverbial big score, stealing a fortune in gold right out from under Paris airport security. All he has to do is lay low until the trail cools enough to fence the bullion.

But Max's partner in crime, the insecure Riton (Rene Dary), brags about the gold to his girlfriend (young Jeanne Moreau), and before long she's whispering his secret in the ear of a drug pusher (Lino Ventura) she's seeing on the side. When the pusher takes Riton hostage to get at the loot, Max must choose between his friend's life and his own selfish desires -- leading, of course, to a violent, gun-blazing showdown on a dark back-country road.

Let's first appreciate the braveness of a caper film that declines to show a single moment of the caper. By the time we meet Max, the loot is already in his possession, and Becker never feels the need to revisit its actual pilfering. It's brilliant shorthand by the director, neatly drumming home that Max and Riton exist not to serve the plot, as happens in so many heist pictures, but to give real purpose to it.

Then there's Becker's patient attention to detail, most impressive in providing a complete portrait of the fussy, class-conscious Max, right down to the character's pressed pajamas and crude fascination with female breasts. Gabin gives a mostly poker-face performance that somehow accomplishes what we're required to believe: Just because the gangster slaps people around doesn't mean he's not a helluva good guy, right?

Becker, who acquired many of his filmmaking skills at the foot of Jean Renoir, is perhaps better remembered for other works, including 1952's tragically romantic "Casque d'Or" and the fascinatingly methodical 1960 anatomy of a prison escape known as "Le Trou." But consider that Neil Jordan recently remade Jean-Pierre Melville's 1955 classic "Bob le Flambeur" into "The Good Thief," and "Bob" is yet another direct byproduct of "Touchez pas au Grisbi."

That's some lasting impact. Becker should get credit for it.

("Touchez pas au Grisbi": ***1/2)

Janice Page can be reached at jpage22@hotmail.com.