Touchez Pas Au Grisbi - Wellington Film Society

Jacques Becker | France | 1954 | M

“Gangland movies rarely come as pleasurable - or as elegant - as this slang-filled French film noir, released in 1954 and rarely matched since. Two icons of French cinema, Jean Gabin and Jeanne Moreau, supply the glamour; the Bogart of French noir, Gabin meshes suave elegance with tough-guy weariness, while Moreau vamps it up as his partner’s much younger, always unsatisfied mistress. In a twist on the heist genre, Touchez pas au grisbi starts after the job’s been done; left with enough grisbi (‘loot’) to keep them in cocktails and caviar for a lifetime, over-the-hill gangsters Max (Gabin) and Riton (René Dary) proceed to start living, and living well. Unfortunately Riton’s lover (Moreau) craves more than what he can give her, which leads to further problems and another trip back to gangland.

"Based on the seminal 1952 book by Albert Simonin, Touchez pas au grisbi earned great notoriety for the snap of its underworld dialogue, with audiences soon mimicking its characters’ distinctive slang and insults… Touchez pas au grisbi's underworld grit and dialogue proved that France could film ‘gangster’ as well as Hollywood, though with an existential nonchalance and debonair charm all its own.”

- San Francisco International Film Festival, 2005 (re-issue)

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