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the first of Jean-Pierre Melville's astonishing and unique cycle of gangster films, which have been variously called 'ironic', 'structuralist', 'post-modernist', 'doconstructionist', 'existential', 'Lacanian', 'oneiric', 'philosophical' etc. Their influence on modern cinema has been incalculable - Melville's creative indepedence, location shooting and low-budgets inspiring the nouvelle vague; his filming of violent men in action everyone from Scorcese and Coppola to Tarantino and Woo; his deconstruction of genre encouraging Bava and Leone.

Yet in many ways, 'Bob' is the least typical of Melville's thrillers. Where, say, 'Le Samourai' exists in a sparse, abstract, geometric, dreamlike Paris, the Montmartre of 'Bob' in vibrantly alive, with its nightclubs, bars, stray GIs, petty hoods, casual sex, late-night gambling. Where in 'Samourai', the hero's character is pared down to psychological abstraction, Bob is a recognisable human being, stern, but sweet, honourable, a Chandlerian knight, with back-history and motivation. Other characters are plausible, if elusive, also. Where 'Samourai' is a masterpiece of tone, in which direction, acting, cinematography, narrative, sound, colour, decor all cohere into a perfect whole, 'Bob' is a riot of clashing modes, more reminiscent of the gleeful iconoclasm of the nouvelle vague - parody and action, humour and seriousness, dream and realism, co-exist in fertile, thrilling tension.

The hero is what the title suggests, a man who can't stop gambling, moving from one late-night backroom poker-game to another, betting most of his money on horse-races, leaving his diet to a throw of the dice; he even has a fruit machine in his well-appointed flat, where his art collection seems to consist of framed carpet. Yet, ironically, he is a methodical man, keeping to the same routine, the same hours, one night losing a fortune, another making one. Gambling is his only vice now; formerly a con, he did time 20 years previously for a failed bank job - he now considers himself too old for the criminal grind.

After one particularly unprofitable spree, and a chance conversation with a pimp-turned-croupier, Bob and an old friend decide to rob the casino safe at Deauville, and begin rounding up the usual experts and investors, minutely orchestrating the heist. Almost immediately the plans fall through - the dissatisfied wife of the inside man informs the police, as does a thug Bob once refused to help. The casino boss is informed, the police lie in waiting. And yet Bob goes ahead...

For a man who took his pseudonym from one of the great novelists; who adapted most of his films (including 'Bob') from books; and who wrote his own screenplays, Melville has little patience with words, and the story of Bob is brilliantly encapsulated in a series of establishing images. The opening narration eulogises Montmartre with shots defining milieu in realistic terms. yet, when we first see Bob, he is in a setting of extreme artifice, with symbolic chess walls (a recurring pattern) and pictures of, rather than actual, locations. He puts on his trenchcoat and fedora, his signs of movie criminality; whereas Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart's characters WERE gangsters by their deeds, Bob plays the role of a gangster just as Ledru plays the role of a cop, and Anne plays the role of vamp or femme fatale - they are recognisably human behind their 'types', but, in this world made of movies, they cannot do the sensible, plausible thing, but are locked into their roles, despite Ledru's humanistic insistence otherwise. Sense would tell Bob to give up the heist; his pre-ordained role means that he cannot.

As he walks in the early dawn at the beginning, he looks into a tarnished mirror, a further visualisation of the difference between one's self and one's role, identity etc. In an extraordinary long shot, the road-sprayer that circles Bob is echoed in the circular shapes of a nearby park, echoing the circles of the film, the vicious circle Bob gets trapped in, the circles of the casino, the cycles of life. He watches as Anne is picked up by an American motorcyclist - Bob as helpless observer; the movie will dramatise the various ill-fated ways in which he will try to move from passive to active, to stop being a pawn of fate; the frequent, unmotivated-angle shots undermine this. Like all Melville's films, this is not the story of a gangster, but a dismantling of all the concealed codes, ideologies, assumptions, of the gangster, of masculinity, of Hollywood cinema.

One of the ways 'Bob' breaks with traditional cinema is in its anti-Oedipal bias. ; A conventional film often uses an Oedipal trajectory, usually showing an immature hero's moral progress, often defeating an older figure, taking his place and power, and winning the girl. This is a necessary process of continuity for the social order. And this seems to be fulfilled here, as Paolo, who hero-worships Bob, obeying him like a father, takes his place, takes his girl, takes his apartment to have the sex Bob can't have anymore, even using Bob's gestures. Bob is a shadow of himself, de trop in his own home. As it should be. The subsequent narrative could be seen as an attempt of Bob's to regain his identity and power, and to emasculate Paolo.

This sublime film is full of little twists of the norm like this. Isabelle Corey is unprecedented among all film heroines, her amoral, seemingly indifferent sexuality far more suggestive and powerful than her contemporary, Bardot's - her fulfilling her femme fatale role does not result in tragedy any more than Bob's fulfilling his gangster role does.

The use of the narrator is interesting too; voiced by Melville, creator of the film, he is also a kind of God-creator, talking about heaven and hell, taking us on a journey from one to the other; talking from the darkness, about how lives cross, but destinies don't meet, than creating a work where crossed destinies are crucial; intruding at bizarre moments, with prior knowledge of the characters' fates before the action has actually determined them. This, of course, dissipates tension, as does the clownish music, mocking and undermining as much as it propels the action, and the characters' theatricality, their awareness of their roles (eg the rehearsals for the heist like a play).

The filming of this goes way beyond Melville's heist models, 'The Asphalt Jungle' (his favourite movie) and 'Rififi' - after all the plot elements have been put in place - the plan, the preparations, the tip-off, the suspense - Melville moves to a completely different register, and what had been a crime film involving many interested parties becomes a solitary, private rite, Bob's gambling in the casino is a heightened, hallucinatory dream, not quite a rite of death, but a rite of middle-age, of letting go the trappings of youth, also paving the way for the great climax of 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly': the shoot-out is pure, beautiful, dream abstraction.

For many, great cinema is defined in rarefied terms of high art, snobbily above the detritus of popular culture. For some of us, though, great cinema means a transformative enriching and expanding of popular genres, a cinema that can speak to everybody, not above them, but making the familiar strange. Keaton. Hitchcock. Hawks. Whale. Ophuls. Sirk. Leone. Melville.

Imagine a movie in which a gambler finds out about a huge payday at a casino and decides to pull off a major heist. He and a couple of friends find a rich backer to put up the money necessary to pull such a large heist and then Bob (the gambler) decides to enlist some others to help out. In the end, he has involved not 9, not 10, but 11 people in the heist. Sound familiar. This hugely influential film by Jean-Pierre Melville has spawned both versions of Ocean's 11 and is also often credited as the grandfather of the Nouvelle Vague movement.

This movie is French, so unlike the American versions of Ocean's Eleven, there is no singing, no laughing, no hi-fiving, just straight-faced gambling, plotting and even the loving is grim and made without a smile. The characters are memorable, especially Bob and Anne as they go through life expecting no happiness. Bob never goes to bed before 6am, as he spends his nights, every night, gambling at different locations. This addiction is part of who he is and plays a key role in the twist at the end.

This movie is like a good strong Camembert. As with many French movies, definitely an acquired taste, but once one learns to appreciate the sharpness, one realizes that there is nothing comparable. Camembert, unlike bacon, is not the food of joy. But it is good, flavorful, and powerful in making one want to partake again and again. Until you feel the tanginess in your mouth, there is no describing the taste or effect, but it is definitely worth the effort to build an appreciation for it. 8/10

Jean-Pierre Melville's "Bob le Flambeur" (1955) has been often called the first film of the French New Wave. First or not, French New Wave or not, "Bob le Flambeur" is one of the coolest and memorable films I've seen. The most fascinating element of this exquisite crime/dram/noir film is its title character, Bob Montagne- Bob the Gambler (Roger Duchesne). All women wanted to be with him and all young men wanted to be him. He was the man well respected and liked by the cops, the criminals, and the gamblers alike - the king of cool, the elegant loser with his own respectable code of honor. He drove an American car and wore an American hat but he belonged to the streets of Montmartre, Paris, where he was born just as the film itself that could've been only made by a French director who admired American films and had created a perfect blend of American gangster film and French sophisticated comedy of manners. Made back in 1955, the movie is fresh, crisp, sensual, modern and simply delightful. Having watched already all "Ocean's" movies, including Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack's classic, I see where the inspiration for them came from. "Bob Le Falmbeur" was released in the USA in 1982, nine years after Melville's death and became an instant cult hit. Often, cult movies are not the best made but it is not true in the case of "Bob le Flambeur". Its direction is perfect: seemingly simple and truly elegant, its cinematography is beautiful, its music score is amazing and its characters are not the caricatures - they are the real human beings of flesh and blood and they have something (or a lot) to lose. Acting is great by everyone with Roger Duchesne unforgettable and Isabelle Corey as a young streetwalker Anne whom Bob took under his wing, absolutely marvelous in her first role - child-like innocent yet already perfectly aware of her powers over the men, by the words of Bob's friend, "she will go far -she knows what she wants but does not show it".

Cult director Jean-Pierre Melville was originally involved with French art legend Jean Cocteau, but really found his niche making hard boiled crime movies. 'Bob le flambeur' was the first major work by him, and he kept making movies up until the early 1970s with 'Dirty Money'. His work had a huge influence on the French New Wave led Godard and Truffaut (who cast him in a supporting role in 'Breathless' as an acknowledgment), and has proved to be a major inspiration for American film makers like Scorsese, Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson whose debut 'Hard Eight' owes 'Bob le flambeur' quite a debt. 'Bob..' really knocked me out, and along with the equally brilliant 'Rififi' directed by Jules Dassin and released the same year, it's one of THE great crime movies of the 1950s, and should be mentioned in the same breath as Huston's 'The Asphalt Jungle' and Kubrick's 'The Killing'. All four films have had an enormous influence on most subsequent movies in the heist genre. 'Bob's plot is quite simple but the story itself isn't the half of it. What Melville DOESN'T say is just as important as what he does, and the viewer has to piece a lot of it together for himself. Roger Duchesne is super cool as Bob, the ageing gambler on a perpetual bad streak, Daniel Cauchy is excellent as his cocky young protege Paolo, and Isabelle Corey is sexy and intriguing as Anne, the jailbait who gets involved with them both. Personally I prefer this movie and 'Rififi' to 'Breathless' and any French New Wave I've seen to date, but that says as much about my taste as much as the movies themselves. Even so I highly recommend 'Bob le flambeur' to anybody who involves crime movies. It's a classic of the genre, and still fantastically entertaining.

Quand tu liras cette lettre was a transitional film from Jean-Pierre Melville's earlier, less distinctive films to what he would become known for, introducing motifs and visual elements that he would mine repeatedly for the rest of his career. In his next film, Bob le Flambeur, Melville has left behind completely the start of his career and become what he's known for: a film about crime, men who do it, and they all look great in fedoras and trench coats. Oh, and there are some women around too, not that they really matter.

Bob (Roger Duchesne) is an old gambler who has managed a modest existence in the section of Paris Montmartre. He has an artist's loft with a great view of Sacre Coeur, and he spends his nights going from one poker game to another dice game, with his little slot machine taking up a closet to welcome him home. He has a friendly relationship with a Parisian police inspector Ledru (Guy Decomble) since they go back to the last criminal job Bob did twenty years prior, where Bob got caught and did time. He's been clean ever since, and Ledru takes him to dinner from time to time. There's a young hood, Paolo (Daniel Cauchy) who idolizes Bob, mimicking his every way of life and trying to essentially become him. When Bob picks up the very pretty Anne (Isabelle Corey) and lets her sleep in his bed (he takes the bed upstairs since he's a gentleman), Paolo becomes infatuated with Anne and steals her right out from under Bob's nose, not that he minds too much. It's not like Anne is the type of girl to stick around anyway.

Bob's been hitting a streak of bad luck, the loss of Anne being the latest setback, and when he hears that the casino in Deauville, on the northern coast of France, carries eight hundred million francs in its safe the morning of the Grand Prix, he goes back on his promise to never take another job and immediately starts plotting. What really helps the movie work so well is the fact that the entire first act is dedicated to building Bob and Paolo, but mostly Bob. This is fully Bob's story, and seeing the comfortable way he lives as well as how it seems to be on the verge of collapse after a bad bet at the races that nearly cleans him out, the first third of the film, is what drives the action on the back end. He's still gambling as he develops this plan, but he's trying to put as much in his control as possible. He's still betting against the house, though.

Together with Paolo, he assembles a team (it's very easy to see how this influenced Steven Soderbergh when he made Ocean's Eleven), and only a couple of these members gain any real prominence or characterization. It's fine, though, since the point is Bob not the heist. He plans the whole affair with gusto, getting a layout of the casino from a croupier, figuring out the make and model of the safe so that his safe cracker can practice, and draws out the floorplan in a field and practices with his men to make sure that they will all be ready. Involving so many people, though, is opening the heist up to leaks, and leaks do happen.

Marc (Gérard Buhr) is a pimp that Bob refused to help when he ran into trouble. With a chip on his shoulder, he happens to meet Anne who blabs innocently the boasts Paolo had said to her of the heist at Deauville. Marc takes this to Ledru who wants to believe that Marc is wrong, that Bob is not involved in a job. And yet, because Ledru is a good cop, he follows through on the investigation.

The ending is fascinating. The plan is for Bob to play stakeout within the casino to make sure that the coast is clear, but despite his promise to not gamble anymore until after the job, he throws down some francs on a roulette table, and he starts winning. The title of the film is incredibly apt because the whole heist plan is an effort at high rolling, and what he really cares about is the thrill of the gamble. The money increases the stakes, but the heist itself isn't the point. The point is the experience. It's why he has a little slot machine in his closet, giving him a little hit of the gamble when he needs it.

When he starts winning, and doesn't stop winning, he loses all track of time. In the end, the heist gets foiled and Bob gets carted away by Ledru, but despite the death that marks the end of the heist before it even begins, Bob is lighthearted. He knows he's still winning his gamble. It recasts Bob in a surprisingly bad light, and I'm there for it. He seemed to have a code of honor, but it falls apart when he wins. His code is for when he manages his gambling in smaller doses. It goes out the window when he's on his streak.

This is full Melville, and it's easy to see why he secured his own unique corner in French cinema. His combination of American crime film influences, precise, classical framing like John Ford, and a firmly French milieu created a unique mixture that, in the firm hands of Jean-Pierre Melville's independence, becomes incredibly compelling and involving. It's cool, it's smart, and it's great.

Remarkably confident and smooth mid fifties outing from Jean-Pierre Melville. Fabulous and innovative b/w cinematography looking very crisp on the Blu-ray with unusual angles and well designed interiors complimenting the immaculate location shooting. Dreamy overhead shots of Parisian streets and closer shots at street level in Pigalle plus the most amazing reconnoitring of the casino as the exterior line is drawn while motoring around the whole. I am not particularly enamoured with Roger Duchesne's performance and wonder if he shouldn't have played it more for laughs, but the rest are good and there is a sensationally good (and very modern) performance from young Isabelle Corey. The final gambling sequence is possibly overlong but it is so well done with the clock ticking and the bemusement of those gathered about him and his pile of chips, all can be forgiven. For the rest the film is immaculately paced and has a wonderful look throughout.

Absent of the stylization of "Le Samurai" and not as gritty or violent as crime thrillers of the 60's, "Bob the Gambler", from Jean Pier Melville, is none the less an important film historically for it's influence on the crime genre, heist films specifically. However, how does it hold up as a film?

Certainly there is sufficient build up to the heist. We see every step of the planning, with plenty of twists and turns leading up to it, and once things get started, the suspense is certainly there, though without giving anything away, the suspense doesn't come the way one would expect it to, but the tension is definitely there. There is violence, though not a whole lot, and it's obscured, so don't expect much in the way of high octane gun action.

While the sections of the film dealing with the heist itself, the planning, build up and execution would all be enough to make this a fine film, what elevates it even more is the characterization. Bob is a a retired criminal, who all ready served twenty years in prison. Now friends with a cop and living seemingly straight, he's none the less prone to gambling and losing. He takes a father like role to Paulo, who aspires to be like him, and takes a liking to a young woman, Anne. He's seemingly a good person, willing to help others whenever he can. However, when he loses most of his fortune on a foolish bet, he gets a team together for a grand scale heist. This film is about more than a heist, it's about a flawed man whose vices will ensure he is never completely on the straight and narrow. Paulo also falls prey to his desire to win over and impress Anne, at any cost. The highlight of the film for me is the characters, fully realized and done justice by fantastic performances from everyone involved. I won't spoil the ending, but it's one of those endings that makes you completely rethink your earlier perceptions.

Cinematography, while not as amazing as "Le Samurai", is still something to appreciate, with clear influences from American crime and noir films.

SHould be approached as more of a crime drama than a full out, action packed heist film. Definitely recommended.

Post-war France embraced all things American, not least its Film Noirs which resulted in three classic heist movies from the 1950's, directed by Jacques Becker, Jules Dassin and Jean-Pierre Melville, the latter having changed his surname from Grumbach in admiration for the author of 'Moby Dick'. His first entry into the genre that he was to make his own sprang from his love of John Huston's masterpiece 'Asphalt Jungle' and he has imbued his variant with typical Gallic irony and finesse. The film has also acquired the reputation of being a precursor to the New Wave with its jump cuts, jazzy score and location shooting.

Bigger budgets and much bigger stars were to come of course but here Melville has a cast prepared to work for peanuts and to be on standby until he could raise more finance to resume filming. Top-billed Isabel Corey was a teenage model when spotted by Melville and he tracked down actor Roger Duchesne, very much persona non grata for his alleged collaboration during the Occupation, whose casting as the title character proved to be a masterstroke. More familiar faces belong to Howard Vernon as a Mr. Big and the excellent Guy Decomble as the Commissaire with whom Bob has a camaraderie that would have been inconceivable in Huston's film.

Melville has the great good fortune to have the services of cinematographer Henri Decae who would become the darling of the New Wave and whose use of natural light and handheld camera are so effective here. The iconic score is by Eddie Barclay who composed for very few films and once again for this director Monique Bonnot provides her editorial skills. Auguste le Breton with his intimate knowledge of the Underworld, makes an invaluable contribution to the script.

A distinct feature of Melville's gangster films is the notion that law makers and law breakers represent both sides of the same coin. In 'Asphalt Jungle' the character of Emmerich refers to criminality as merely 'a left-handed form of human endeavour'. One gets the impression that Huston and Melville were of the same opinion.

"Bob the high-roller," as he was called in the translation I watched; loves gambling. He's also a thief. Everyone thinks he's retired, including the police sergeant he keeps in touch with. But he suddenly gets a taste for it again, and decides to put a group together and rob a casino. Remade un-memorably with Nick Nolte as The Good Thief, this black and white French original created the clichés that made the whole world sing, from Ocean's Eleven (1960), Reservoir Dogs (1991), Casino (1994) and every other breezy heist movie ever made. Stanley Kubrick said he stopped making crime movies because Melville made the perfect one here.

Great characters, a memorable score with jazzy sections, great performances, and probably the best pacing and story of any heist/noir/crime movie from the 30's, 40's or 50's. This is just guaranteed compulsively good entertainment, and as a first experience from Jean-Pierre Melville, instantly encourages me to see everything else he did. My next steps will by Le Cercle Rouge, Army in the Shadows and Le Samourai.

Coming a few years before Jean-Pierre Melville's ongoing obsession with trenchcoats and fedoras, Bob Le Flambeur is probably his most traditional noir flick, centered around the titular Bob (played by Roger Duchesne), an aging gangster who decides to go in for one final gamble by robbing a local casino. He recruits a small group of partners to come in with him, but the arrival of the beautiful young Anne (played with compelling charm by Isabelle Corey) throws a rift in the dynamic of the group and we all know how a girl can bring the downfall of a great many men.

It's all relatively standard procedure, but it's interesting to see Melville developing what would eventually become his trademark style. The film doesn't have the unbelievably slick style of Le Samourai or the brooding grit of Le Doulos, but at times you can see pieces of each and it's all built around an interesting central figure. Bob is a man who we never get the chance to fully explore, but it's that stoicism, that mystery, that makes him all the more engaging. Duchesne plays him with a haunted, world-worn reserve that reminded me of the kind of stuff that George Clooney has been doing for the last five years or so. Bob Le Flambeur ends up being a character study more than anything else, which made me kind of curious as to why Bob essentially takes a backseat to the supporting characters for the middle stretch of the film.

After the first act establishes him he almost disappears and we instead focus a lot more on the cops and Bob's young protégé Paolo (Daniel Cauchy). It was a disappointing turn, made all the more so by how interesting things got once we returned full-on to Bob in the final act. It's a diversion that's easy to understand in order to bring about the conflicts that drive the overall narrative, but it made me wish that we had been focusing on him entirely the whole time. Still, it's an ultimately minor complaint in an otherwise solid, if not overly impressive Melville entry. The film features an excellent ending as well, closing out on a high point.

This is such a great movie, that does about everything right. It's an early French crime caper movie, that obviously helped to set the standards for later movies.

It's not like there weren't any movies like this prior to this movie but this is one that has all of the modern genre element type of ingredients in it, that we can still see back in todays movies. It perhaps makes this movie seem as a bit of a formulaic and generic one by todays standards but in the light of when this movie got made, it surely is a greatly original one. And it still really is one that is among the best, regardless of the fact that you probably have seen all of the elements in this movie being handled in later ones and better known ones as well.

It has a great story with some equally great characters in it. It's a very rich movie that also manages to capture the right tone, thanks to some fine directing. It has lots of typical crime elements in it, such as an heist, likable 'bad guys' and the cat and mouse game between them and the police.

It really is a fine made movie, that got directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The movie has a good look over it, as well as a nice steady pace. The scene's are being build up great and the entire story gets told effectively. It's a great 'how-to' on directing and storytelling. It feels really like a Hollywoodized version of a French movie but in this case that's a good thing. It's also why this also helped to influence movies from Hollywood as well.

No reason why to not like this movie.

9/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

It's probably common practice to brush aside films that were once made before a country really had a 'boom' in terms of coming up with their own film form or film movement. Bob the Gambler was made in the mid 1950s, a few years before Goddard amongst a few others devised the French New Wave and made it popular with films like The 400 Blows and Goddard's own Breathless. You can take numerous examples from down the decades: Does any one remember or still watch any German films before their Expressionism movement in the 1920s? What about Italian film before the 1940s or Danish films before the Dogme '95 movement? This is where Bob the Gambler is living proof that it hasn't aged that badly as we (or at least I'm) still stumbling across pre-film movement films and enjoying them for what they are.

It's not just Bob the Gambler that is an example of French film and how pre-new wave French film has survived; a lot of the Lumière brothers films should be the first point of call for someone wondering where film and cinema came from; the answer is of course the French. Bob the Gambler as a film is just simply fascinating – its look, its use of locations and its actual narrative just ooze class. Melville uses a very clever technique to introduce not just the characters and the setting but also the film as a whole without even touching on the story. This is done through the opening thirty or so minutes which just consists of character interaction as we discover what types of people these characters are and any other necessary information about pasts or whatever is delivered to us through dialogue. We discover a bit about Bob and his relation to the police as well as a bit on the shady past of the character of Paolo who will contribute to the plot later on since he works at the casino.

But the film also consists of both outdoor and indoor scenes that are fascinating to watch. The indoor scenes for reasons just said and the outdoor scenes as more of a historical lesson if anything. This is post war Paris captured on film with cars and buildings acting as brilliant, timeless and irreplaceable mise-en-scene. And yet, Bob the Gambler has enough essence of noir, crime and innovation to keep it worth watching. There's a shot of a nipple in the film that surely would've had censors doing somersaults, several suggestions that sex has happened is implied by way of the scenes ending and there's even room for a shot from the backseat of a travelling car as the two occupants drive to their destination and maybe share a glance. Two things: 1. Would a Hollywood film from the time include such a scene or just get them there without the journey and 2. The shot is eerily similar to that of the one in Goddard's 1960 film Breathless where Michael is describing what he likes about the girl sitting next to him in list form. If Melville had been a bit bolder and included some jump cuts, the New Wave would've started there and then – no question.

There is further proof that the film has aged well and that the director was thinking big at the time in the script. My personal favourite scene is when they're going over the heist plan and one of the robbers stands to attention as non diegetic music stars up before Bob yells at him to sit back down and then the music immediately stops. Melville toys with us once again and has fun with the soundtrack simultaneously whilst probably having a stab at Hollywood for the time. That said, the script is full of witty putdown and lines that don't advance the story but are truly 'real'; very akin to today's Hollywood films after Tarantino gave everybody permission to do so.

Bob the Gambler is a number of things and utilises a number of conventions that whilst watching in today's world, seem very familiar to us thanks to recent films but this was France, mid 1950s and even more fascinating: pre-French New Wave. If ever there was a film to watch in order to see what French film was like 'pre-movement', then this is it. Not one to be brushed aside.

It isn't "cool" to like an American re-make over a European original, but that's the way I feel about this one. The remake, "The Good Thief," was simply more interesting. Perhaps since I saw the latter right before I saw "Bob," it made this one disappointing, since this did not have the story twists I found in the modern-day version. And, hopefully, another viewing will change my mind.

Isabelle Corey, who was not a 15-year-old as reported in several film noir publications, but in her mid-20s, was nice on the eyes and Roger Duchensne, as "Bob," the lead male also was interesting.

The cinematography is pretty good but I've seen films noirs a lot better, not only in the photography but in heist stories. On the whole, I felt this was really overrated and overpriced, DVD--wise.

If you want a good French film noir from the same year, rent or buy "Rififi"" instead.

Yesterday I have watched Jean-Pierre Melville's BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1955) for the first time, by way of Criterion's exemplary DVD edition. The film is a typical 50s French noir in its presentation of divided loyalties among a gang of crooks, women causing trouble, an elaborate heist-gone-wrong, police interrogation, etc. With this, Melville's first outing in a genre he later made his own, the director shows he is already at one with the milieu, capturing its every nuance and mannerism with almost effortless ease.

The cast is relatively low-key but all the main roles are admirably filled. Unfortunately, none went on to do much else of importance (apart from Howard Vernon) - and it was, in fact, lead actor Roger Duchesne's penultimate film. Looking a bit like Rudolf Klein-Rogge (who as Dr. Mabuse also played a gambling crime lord), he exudes a smooth charisma and is quite arresting in his playing. Isabel Corey, still a teenager but looking incredibly sexy and mature, was literally hand-picked by Melville himself for the role of Anne, the lovely waif whom Bob takes under his wing but whose inexperience eventually leads, in part, to his downfall. The film also makes brief yet subtle use of nudity which, at that time, was not something one would hope to find in American movies! Daniel Cauchy as Paulo, Bob's right-hand man who also falls for Corey, acquits himself well too here and, on the DVD, delivers an intelligent and delightful 20-minute interview which gives some insight into Melville's working methods, the film's pain-staking shooting schedule (it took some two years to complete during which time Cauchy found time to appear in another four movies!) and also the director's insistence in portraying the 'correct' way of dying on screen. Howard Vernon has a brief but pivotal role as the shady Scotsman who offers to finance Bob's 'scheme'.

Apart from the usual conventions of typical French crime dramas, BOB LE FLAMBEUR introduces some new forms of technique which anticipated the off-the-cuff style of the Nouvelle Vague by some years: the editing has a strange, almost disjointed rhythm to it which is particularly felt near the end during the long gambling sequence at the casino; the hand-held camera-work lends it a slightly amateurish look which suits the mood perfectly; a vaguely avant-gardist touch is also evident in the set design, as in the domino-styled walls of the gambling-dens Bob frequents and the closet in his apartment that is fitted with a privately-owned slot machine! Another interesting aspect (derived perhaps from Julien Duvivier's PEPE' LE MOKO [1936]) is the mutual admiration that is present between Bob and the Police Inspector played by Guy Decomble.

Unlike most of Melville's other work, and particularly his film noirs, the gloomy 'atmosphere' is here counter-pointed by a deft playful mood that makes the film extremely enjoyable despite its fairly slow pace. The film's conclusion then, improbable as it may seem, provides a perfect and deliciously ironic twist - complete with a wonderful closing line.

Criterion's DVD also includes a rather vague radio interview, conducted in English in 1961, with Jean-Pierre Melville who is made distinctly uneasy by interviewer Gideon Bachmann's frustratingly opaque questions. We learn, however, of Melville's great love of American cinema as well as his own work's belated but well-deserved international recognition. I have now watched 8 of Melville's films - LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES (1950); BOB LE FLAMBEUR; LEON MORIN, PRETRE (1961 - possibly forthcoming on DVD from Criterion); LE DOULOS (1962 - possibly forthcoming on DVD from Criterion); L' AINE' DES FERCHEAUX (1963); LE SAMOURAI (1967); L' ARMEE' DES OMBRES (1969 - possibly forthcoming on DVD from Criterion); and UN FLIC (1972 - I still haven't gotten round to purchasing the Anchor Bay R1 DVD). I haven't yet watched LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970 - possibly forthcoming on DVD from Criterion) which I own on VHS, but I may just check it out now that I'm in the mood for more Melville movies!

This is a very good film with a sympathetic main character. Very good acting, realism, as many of the scenes are shot in the streets of Paris, lush cinematography excellent acting, drama and a surprise, and a very well done ending.

Quite a bit of Bob le flambeur (Bob the High-Roller) contains a blend of elements you've probably seen from many other gambling and heist films. A gambler and ex-con (Roger Duchesne) is on a losing streak, and hits upon an idea to score big by robbing a casino safe. He assembles his crew and plans out the mission, but the police, one of whom is a friend, aren't far behind. Despite what seems like familiar territory, the film is elevated considerably by the location footage in the Montmarte and the style that Jean-Pierre Melville and his cinematographer Henri Decaë give the film.

On the downside, despite young Isabelle Corey's charms, the female characters aren't portrayed in all that positive a light, and the film is a tad methodical in its pace, showing things like the use of a stethoscope and audio equipment in safe cracking that are old hat all these years later. The real-life story of Duchesne, a heavy gambler and ex-con in the Montmarte (and regrettably also a Nazi collaborator) is a fascinating, but rather problematic parallel as well. He has a certain presence here, but displayed little range in his performance.

As with all heist films, inevitably something goes wrong with the plan, but this one has an ace or two up its sleeve in its story, defying expectations. It's at the crossroads of American film noir, which it leverages from, and the French New Wave, which it influenced, but it has a unique feel all its own. It may not be for everyone given its dearth of big action scenes, but I enjoyed it.

Bob, a middle-aged gambler and ex-con living in the Montmartre district of Paris, experiences a run of bad luck that leaves him nearly broke. Bob is a gentleman with scruples, well liked in the demi-monde community. He has unsuccessfully tried to rob a bank in the past, and has spent time in prison.

Vincent Canby, writing in 1981, noted "Melville's affection for American gangster movies may have never been as engagingly and wittily demonstrated as in Bob le Flambeur, which was only the director's fourth film, made before he had access to the bigger budgets and the bigger stars of his later pictures." "Bob le flambeur" influenced the two versions of the American film Ocean's Eleven (1960 and 2001) as well as Paul Thomas Anderson's "Hard Eight", and was remade by Neil Jordan as "The Good Thief" in 2002. What I love about this is how the genre comes full circle. With the western, it had to go to Italy before it come back and be reborn in the United States. Apparently for the gangster film, it had to detour through France.

Seemingly, American studios could not be inspired by John Ford or William Wellman until their work was properly recognized by some European counterparts in the 1950s and 1960s. But that is not surprising.

I watched this film for the first time quite recently on France's TV Monde and found it exhilarating, years ahead of its time, and like Rififi something of a precursor in terms of heist movies. Roger Duchesne has a commanding presence -- and performance to boot -- as Bob the gambler but he is more than ably accompanied by the rest of the cast. This stylish, inveterate yet principled gambler has no luck at cards or, for that matter, at love but he cares for others and enjoys the admiration of the local top cop who really tries to prevent him coming to harm. When Lady Fortune finally smiles upon Bob it also makes him late for the heist, an event that precipitates the ending. This storyline is deceptively simple as there is much to enjoy in the building of the characters that surround him. The direction by Melville (who only added forenames Jean-Pierre later] is as impeccable as you will find and the photography quite stunning despite some amateurish touches. My feeling is that if you care for movies you should not miss this.

Crime dramas and gangster stories became one of the most successful genres of American cinema during World War II and in the years that followed. In France, American movies had been banned during the German occupation, which only accentuated the thirst for overseas cinema and about everything American in the years immediately following the end of the war. The French would be the ones who found the right words to give a name to this cinematic style - film noir. Among the French directors who adored American films, Jean-Pierre Melville was probably the most fascinated of all, he imported and adapted the genre, and gave it an unmistakable French touch. 'Bob le Flambeur' released in 1956 (under the generic name Melville) is one of the reference films of his career, a film that contains many of the cinematography elements of the school that would receive the name Nouvelle Vague a few years later.

The story of the making of the film is also very interesting. Melville was not only a talented film director, but also a precursor to what we today call independent cinema. But the cause of his independence was quite prosaic. Following a conflict with the trade unions in the industry, he had to produce his film on a very low budget, with almost amateur actors or in any case unpaid, with mobile cameras because the fixed ones cost too much, on the streets of Paris because he had no funds for studios, etc. The result is original and remarkable. 'Bob le Flambeur' is the biography of a good-hearted gangster-gambler who risks in gambling or on horse races betting not only the money he has or doesn't have, but also his own life and of those around.

Bob's role is played by Roger Duchesne, who, like the hero of the movie, had his glory period some 20 years before. Obstructed by suspicion of collaboration with the German occupiers during the war, he had disappeared from screens for more than a decade. Melville (who was Jewish) gives him the opportunity to return to the screen and play a penultimate role in his career. I'm sure that Belmondo (who debuted that same year) saw this movie. It even has a scene where the hero looks in the mirror. Duchesne is given replica by Isabelle Corey, a young 16 years old beauty, who reminded me of Brigitte Bardot (with whom she was to play for the next year in Roger Vadim's '...And God Created Woman'), but who was less fortunate in her career, perhaps because she resembled too much the famous star. The most successful scenes are the ones filmed in Montmartre and around Place Pigalle, and some of the dialogues between gangsters or with the police officers that integrate well into the atmosphere. The script is less successful, the plot has quite a lot of wholes, especially psychological ones. The film is to be remembered in particular by Duchesne's interpretation and by the images - a document of a glamorous underground Paris.

The generally positive reviews for this film baffle me. Some movies wear well with age. This one, made nearly sixty years ago, hobbles along on crutches. It is billed as 'a crime thriller' and 'gangster movie' but NOTHING HAPPENS! Jean-Pierre Melville had no experience of directing a movie before he put this together and, even with the help (or perhaps because) of rewrites from Jean Cocteau, the action remains comatose, the narrative entirely linear. It looks like the work of an amateur, though admittedly Paris in 1956 is shot atmospherically. The cigarette count is as high as the body count is low. What gangster or flambeur (the French argot for 'gambler') was ever called 'Bob'? Bob is a name you give your pet Labrador - it's a light comedy name. This particular entirely uncharismatic Bob wanders around from one gambling den to another in a one-expression performance. Other characters are poorly defined by the script or weakly acted by an inexperienced cast. The music (of which there is much) is as intrusive as it is frequently inappropriate. Don't believe the film pseuds. Mickey Spillane or Dashiell Hammett it ain't.