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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Image Entertainment
EAN: 9780780025011
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 0780025016
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Criterion
Release Date: April 16, 2002
Running Time: 102 minutes
Sales Rank: 15004
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: 1955
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Suffused with wry humor, Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur melds the toughness of American gangster films with Gallic sophistication to lay the roadmap for the French New Wave. As the neon is extinguished for another dawn, an aging gambler navigates the treacherous world of pimps, moneymen, and naïve associates while plotting one last score-the heist of the Deauville casino. This underworld comedy of manners possesses all the formal beauty, finesse and treacherous allure of green baize.
Amazon.com:
A singular masterpiece that served as a clarion call for the coming French New Wave, this 1955 love letter to the city of Paris and the American urban noir films of the 1930s and 1940s is precisely the sort of cinematic consideration of genre influences that became the soul of early works by Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Claude Chabrol. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (a filmmaker so enamored of American culture he adopted the name of Moby Dick's author), Bob le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler) concerns a courtly gangster who plans on robbing a casino. But the film is less about the trappings of a conventional heist tale than about Melville's embrace of the form and his wistful weavings within it. The title character (Roger Duchesne) is almost a knight errant, with a visible gallantry and code of loyalty suggesting Melville's own dreams of film tradition, reinvented into something both faithful and new. A terrific experience and an important sliver of film history. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Bob le Flambeur
It would be very easy to compare "Bob le Flambeur" to Jules Dassin's Rififi. Both have a middle-aged protagonist fresh out of the slammer: Bob Montagne and Tony Stephanois, respectively. Both have a young pup who looks up to said protagonist. A gal's rejection is arguably a partial catalyst in each when it comes to pulling off a heist - a casino in "Bob" and a jewelry store in Rififi. In each, there is a code of honor that even reprobates aspire to. And the cinematography in both films show off Paris to a stunning degree.
But, in what would be only in retrospect, there is no mistaking a Jean Pierre Melville film with a lonely romanticized anti-hero all decked out in suit underneath a trench coat, oftentimes hatted, a cig hanging from the corner of a mouth. Sometimes there's a nightclub (bebop, bebop) and a girl who's usually played by a vacant-eyed actress (in this case, a vapid Isabelle Corey spilling out of every outfit). In this Melville, Bob the high roller is out of jail and attempting to stay out of trouble. As jaded cafe owner, Yvonne, says to him, he is too old to survive another stay in prison. But the lure of eighty million francs in the Deauville casino safe and perhaps one too many games of baccarat might ultimately be his undoing.
A terrific film with tons of atmosphere as well as an interesting precursor to the even more accomplished Le Samourai (my absolute favorite Melville) and Le Cercle Rouge.
Rating:  - Ah, Monsieur Bob...
Just saw this movie again after probably two decades, and it's still one of the more gripping - and probably the pleasantest - of the great heist/noir movies I've ever seen. Reminded me that I once had a trilogy in my head of aging-courtly-criminals-we-root-for: Roger Duchesne's Bob Le Flambeur,
Burt Lancaster's Lou Pasco in "Atlantic City", and Richard Farnsworth's
Bill Miner is "The Grey Fox." Might be time to review and update the list, but these three gentleman stay.
Rating: - Stylish French Gangster Film Noir
I saw Le Samourai recently and liked it a lot. I read up on Jean Pierre Melville and learned that Bob Le Flambeur was considered by many cineastes to be one of his masterpieces. So perhaps I expected too much...and was a little disappointed. Le Samourai had Alain Delon who was a much more watchable actor than Roger DuChesne. Apparently Melville had very little money at the time he made this film and couldn't afford high priced actors.
It is certainly stylish and fun to watch for its '50's Montmartre underworld atmosphere. The scenes at the casino at Deauville were great, too, especially the final one where Bob wins big. The faces of the other players are terrific!
The interview with Daniel Couchy, who plays Paulo is interesting. He states that he really doesn't see why so many people love this film. I have to agree with him. It's obviously historically important for the innovations made in technique--the hand-held camera, etc. Lovers of film will find much to like here. For me, it was not as enjoyable as Le Samouri.
Rating: - An American Film Noir from out of France
This displaced American film noir movie was made by French auteur Jean-Pierre Melville. It has a white-haired leading man (Roger Duchesne) who, Bogart-like, wears a wide-brim hat and a trenchcoat. He's a gambler with ethics (such as his hatred of pimps). But, when things get desperate for him, he falls back on his failed career of 20 years before - robbery - this time of a casino.
Usually I find the heist in Melville films the most interesting part, but this time I preferred the early, mood-setting scenes of this movie in which the gambler strolls thru Montmarte streets between the backroom gambling dens and his home and haunts. And I liked his efforts to aid a wayward young woman -- primarily because that woman was played by Isabel Corey. The detailed heist was interesting, and there's a cool and cruel twist at the end.
As usual, Melville's direction is top notch. The pacing, as usual, is very deliberate. Financial desperation on Melville's part forced him to cast minor actors, so the faces were unknown to me - but I wish Isabel Corey's wasn't. Forget Bardot or Loren. Corey put most European sex kittens of the time in the shade (altho, it seems she could barely act).
The Criterion DVD has a couple extras. The best is a recent interview with aging Daniel Cauchy who played the young man in this film. He has a lot of interesting information (such as how this film qualifies as his third and seventh film). Also available is a radio interview with Melville but the ... Read More
Rating: - Cool and elegant blend of American gangster film and French sophisticated comedy of manners
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 ... Read More
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