Touchez Pas au Grisbi

“Grisbi” means loot, 96 kilos of gold, stolen at Orly. Max (Jean Gabin) is retiring. The gangsters’ world he lives in is settled and refined, squares are out, “tu” says everyone, one goes to bed early. It’s as quiet as the office of Spade & Archer at the beginning of The Maltese Falcon.

His partner and old pal Riton (René Dary) loses his head over a dame (Jeanne Moreau), she tells Angelo (Lino Ventura) about the gold, and very quickly there’s a war.

Mike Hodges did the best analysis, in Get Carter, whose subject is the European War 1939-45, with particular reference to the Normandy invasion. Touchez Pas au Grisbi is about the fall of France and the Liberation. Someone else wanted the loot, there was a terrible cost, the cops got it after all.

Riton is kidnapped. Max recollects their friendship. A woman telephones, out of the blue, he goes and sees her... Becker invents a variation of Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart (the “fireplace poker” scene), emphasizing the beauty of it. Afterward, Max resolves to rescue Riton. The other major influence is The Big Sleep.

Never has a director been more conscious of his soundtrack. Every sound, footsteps, cars, cloth, dishes, everything, is precisely recorded at the correct tone, as a point of artistry but also to counteract the allegory (“on the banks of the Nile”).

The new English translation calls machine guns “rods,” gives “don’t sweat it” for “n’insiste,” and has Riton say “Take your own bed. I can crash here.”

Becker’s showgirls include la petite Moreau, avant tout. His gangsters spring from lethargy into furious action. His opening pan under the credits moves along the rooftops of Paris and finally settles on the Moulin Rouge (between Graff and Cyrano), to piano notes and string chords like Home Town Story. Denise Clair is a remarkable likeness of Thelma Ritter as Madame Bouche.

The mysteriousness of signs in Paris streets: Club Mystific (where the girls dance), Hotel Moderna (where Riton lives). “Sacré Max,” a tough calls him, after the shootout.