Bob le flambeur (1955)

Robert "Bob" Montagné (Roger Duchesne) is a gangster turned legitimate professional gambler; his associates are criminal (or ex-), but he himself makes his money by winning it from the obscenely wealthy at the Deauville Casino. Left flat broke by a long losing streak, he has no choice but to plan with his friends Roger (André Garet) and Paulo (Daniel Cauchy) to revive his old career in larceny.

Melville's film is part heist-caper and part gangster noir, but shouldn't be considered an example of either genre; it's as much about New Wave existentialism as it is crime. It's about Bob, Bob the flambeur. Slang for "gambler" or "high-roller", it suggests risk as a defining character trait: it's more than an occupation, it's a way of life. It's true that he spends much of the film planning a heist, but crime is merely what Bob does: gambling is what he is.

It would be unreasonably reductive to say that he's a gambler and nothing more; one of the most interesting aspects of the film is his inscrutably ambiguous relationship with Anne (Isabelle Corey), a young woman he seems anxious to save from exploitation. He's certainly an addict, however; he even keeps a slot machine in his closet.

The achievement of the film is that it so perfectly conveys both the effects of such a lifestyle and the motive for it. Most films about vice make no such attempt. If gambling (drugs, alcohol...) is so obviously ruining the protagonist's life, why keep going? We see them ruined, and smugly think: well, good thing I'm not a gambler. We fail to understand.

The cast are wonderful, their characters are interesting, the cinematography is gorgeous, and I particularly like Melville's use of directional wipes to suggest movement -- a vertical wipe when the next scene is upstairs, horizontal one way when driving, and so on.

Well worth seeing.