Fragments of Noir: May 2024

Friday 31 May 2024

Into the Hell

Servais's Tony is cold as a corpse, part desiccated Jean Gabin, part deadpan Count Dracula. Too tough to check his hat when he descends into the hell of L'Age D'Or to find his old flame Mado (Marie Sabouret), Tony discovers that she has taken up with the joint's sinister owner (played, in keeping with the movie's internationalist subtext by a Romanian emigre, Marcel Lupovici). He establishes himself as the apache dancer's apache dancer when he collects Mado mid-assignation and, in the movie's most shocking scene, takes her back to his fleabag, where he orders her to strip, starting with her jewels, then beats her up and tosses her out - keeping the rocks but not the mink, which her hurls contemptuously after her down the stairs.

J. Hoberman
(on Rififi 1955)
Criterion.com

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3021-rififi-a-global-caper

He Saw Keechie

..... there had been no rumbles when he was gone, and now he closed the door quietly and the leaves on the walk crackled under his moving shoes. He lifted on the knob so the door would not scrape and went in. Pale coals studded the mound of dark ashes in the fireplace and then he saw Keechie sitting on the end of the cot by the shadowy radio.

Thieves Like Us
Edward Anderson
1937