Day 5: "Rififi"

Director: Jules Dassin 1955
The mean and hardboiled dark side of “Big Deal on Madonna Street.” A cool, efficient band of thieves breaks into a jewelry store in Paris. There is a bravura silent sequence of some 30 minutes as the thieves pull off the heist. Of course, like all good movies of this genre, things go wrong once the swag has been taken. Filmed on location in Paris, “Rififi” is a true film noir—as tough as another noir classic from the same year, Robert Aldrich’s “Kiss Me Deadly” (also a must see). Both films influenced Godard and other New Wave directors.