Touchez Pas Au Grisbi

Touchez Pas Au Grisbi
1954
Directed by Jacques Becker
Written by Jacques Becker, Maurice Giffe and Albert Simonin
Starring Jean Gabin

One of the pioneering French gangster films, Grisbi serves as an excellent introduction to this much neglected genre.  Too often have these films been ignored by the public due to the embrace of an intellectual fan base that excludes the general viewer.  But these are films for the average viewer, they're the French version of the 70's American grindhouse:  punk violence for the masses, courtesy of stylish sociopaths obsessed with profit.  Grisbi comes onto it's story like a freight train, with Jean Gabin all made up to look 50, greased up and powdered, with a gun in one hand and a gold brick in the other.  Even in 1954 the story was probably cliched: he's a man with some money who wants out, but first he has to deal with all the bastards who are trying to screw him.  96 minutes later, roll the credits and bury the bodies.  It's hell in the French countryside, and somebody let Gabin have a machine gun. 

Comments

[Matt Hartwick]

What has impressed me about Jean Gabin is his ability to carry off difficult intention and make it seem natural, easy. "Touchez Pas Au Grisbi" wouldn't have been half the film without him it it.
Writers and critics often laud an actor's charisma, perhaps satisfied with the lesser, watered-down species of intensity/sex appeal possessed by so many.
Gabin has something rare: an assurance of space, movement and poise; a solidity and manifest presence that make him magnetic and somehow instantly believable in whatever role. In "Grisbi," he can walk into a room and cow everyone in it with a look. And you know that nobody said, "Okay, now when he looks at you like that, the rest of you look intimidated." You believe it because you know that, were you there in the room with him, you'd be meek like a small baby lamb infant.
You don't see it much.
Mere "sex appeal" looks drab in comparison.