Rififi - Criterion Collection

Rififi - Criterion Collection
by Jules Dassin

Rififi - Criterion Collection
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $24.99
You Save: $4.96 (17%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $13.67 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases


(Click here)
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada

DVD Cover Information

Actor: Alice Garan, Jacques Besnard, Jacques David, Janine Darcey, Pierre Grasset
Director: Jules Dassin
Brand: Image Entertainment
Primary Contributor: Servais, Jean
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-04-24
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion

Movie Reviews of Rififi - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: Hardly a classic
Summary: 3 Stars

If Dassen's political views had been, say, right wing, would any of the "fillum" critics pay much attention to this at times interesting, overly long, and painfully melodramatic gangster movie? If the film hadn't featured barely clothed women, would it have been praised at the time? I feel sorry for the "film studies" students who must endure this movie and write silly, politically correct essays on its "message." And if one of them dares writes "The Wages Of Sin Are Death" a failing grade is perhaps in his or her future. In short, this is tedious viewing, strictly for those wishing to appear oh-so-sophisticated. I'll take any number of Edward G. Robinson films, some made more than twenty years before this "pathbreaking" French movie.

Summary of Rififi - Criterion Collection

Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 04/24/2001 Run time: 118 minutes
Hollywood's loss was Europe's gain when Jules Dassin fled America because of the House Un-American Activities Committee blacklist at the end of the 1940s. His films helped bring the moral ambiguity of the postwar American thriller to Europe, inspiring a new generation of critics and filmmakers. Writing several years before he made The 400 Blows, Fran?ois Truffaut praised Dassin for the way his films "combin[ed] the documentary approach with lyricism," a method that would inform many of the new wave films of the '60s.

Rififi, shot on the rainy streets of Paris, is imbued with the same gritty realism that marked Dassin's earlier work in New York (The Naked City) and London (Night and the City). Jean Servais plays Tony le St?phanois, an aging crook whose thin lips and tired, seen-it-all eyes give him a look somewhere between Humphrey Bogart and Harry Dean Stanton. Out of jail after a five-year stretch, he joins up with a couple of pals to pull one last heist: a jewel robbery that is portrayed in such detail (including tips on how to silence an alarm using a fire extinguisher) that the film was banned in several countries.

The robbery sequence alone, which lasts for 30 minutes and is played entirely without dialogue, would be enough to ensure Rififi's classic status, but there's a lot more to enjoy, including terrific performances from Marie Sabouret as Tony's world-weary ex-girlfriend, and from Dassin himself as a dandified Italian safecracker with an eye for the ladies. After the thrill of the heist, in the film's final scenes when, with the inevitability of the best films noirs everything falls apart, Dassin achieves the lyricism that Truffaut admired so much. By combining the conventions of a caper movie with his own brand of bleak nihilism, he made Rififi into a film that deserves to be counted among the best ever made.--Simon Leake

Art House & International DVD Video

DVD Video
Movies most talked about in My Favorite French Films
Jean De Florette / Manon of the Spring (MGM World Films) ImageJean De Florette / Manon of the Spring (MGM World Films)
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2007-07-24; Published: 1987; DVD
Best price: $10.71
Price in other shops: $19.98
Le Samourai - Criterion Collection ImageLe Samourai - Criterion Collection
Release date: 2005-10-25; DVD
Best price: $19.91
Price in other shops: $29.95
A Man and a Woman ImageA Man and a Woman
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2003-03-18; DVD
Best price: $11.61
Price in other shops: $19.98
Belle de Jour ImageBelle de Jour
Release date: 2002-01-22; DVD
Best price: $10.96
Price in other shops: $19.99
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg ImageThe Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Release date: 2004-04-06; DVD
Best price: $10.90
Price in other shops: $24.98
Le Doulos - Criterion Collection ImageLe Doulos - Criterion Collection
Release date: 2008-10-07; DVD
Best price: $27.21
Price in other shops: $39.95
Jacques Demy's Lola ImageJacques Demy's Lola
Release date: 2003-12-09; Published: 2003-12-09; DVD
Best price: $14.94
Price in other shops: $19.95
Sundays and Cybele ImageSundays and Cybele
Connoisseur Video; Release date: 1996-09-17; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $169.99
Eyes Without a Face - Criterion Collection ImageEyes Without a Face - Criterion Collection
Release date: 2004-10-19; DVD
Best price: $15.49
Price in other shops: $29.95
Jules and Jim - Criterion Collection ImageJules and Jim - Criterion Collection
Release date: 2005-05-31; DVD
Best price: $27.06
Price in other shops: $39.95
Similar DVD Movies
The Third Man (50th Anniversary Edition) - Criterion Collection ImageThe Third Man (50th Anniversary Edition) - Criterion Collection
DVD
Best price: $42.75
Breathless - Criterion Collection ImageBreathless - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-10-23; DVD
Best price: $27.00
Price in other shops: $39.95
No Country for Old Men ImageNo Country for Old Men
Release date: 2008-03-11; DVD
Best price: $9.94
Price in other shops: $29.99
Ace in the Hole - Criterion Collection ImageAce in the Hole - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-07-17; DVD
Best price: $22.99
Price in other shops: $39.95
Army of Shadows - Criterion Collection ImageArmy of Shadows - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-05-15; DVD
Best price: $27.04
Price in other shops: $39.95
Night and the City - Criterion Collection ImageNight and the City - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2005-02-01; DVD
Best price: $25.36
Price in other shops: $39.95
Point Blank ImagePoint Blank
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2005-07-05; DVD
Best price: $11.65
Price in other shops: $19.98
Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) - Criterion Collection ImageLe Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) - Criterion Collection
Release date: 2003-10-28; DVD
Best price: $26.86
Price in other shops: $39.95
Bob le Flambeur - Criterion Collection ImageBob le Flambeur - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2002-04-16; DVD
Best price: $18.99
Price in other shops: $29.95
Le Samourai - Criterion Collection ImageLe Samourai - Criterion Collection
Release date: 2005-10-25; DVD
Best price: $19.78
Price in other shops: $29.95
Compare prices and read customer reviews for more than one million DVD titles.
Oscar 2005 Winners