Rafles sur la ville (1958)
Directed by Pierre Chenal

Film Review

In its heyday, the classic French policier was admirably well-served  by the works of Auguste Le Breton, a writer who appeared to understand the workings of France's criminal underworld (Le Milieu) better than any other.  Some of the most distinguished French thrillers are adaptations of Le Breton novels, from Jules Dassin's Du rififi chez les hommes (1955) to Henri Verneuil's Le Clan des Siciliens (1969).  Pierre Chenal's Rafles sur la ville may be less well-known but it is just as worthy of attention as these much-vaunted classics, mainly because it captures the essence of Le Breton's eerily crepuscular world - urban landscapes draped in shadows and fear, and seedy nightspots heavily scented with liquor, cigarette smoke and more than a hint of cordite.

Today, Pierre Chenal is almost forgotten, his thunder stolen by more prolific directors in the policier genre - Jean-Pierre Melville, Georges Lautner, Henri Verneuil and Jacques Deray.  Yet Chenal was one of the directors who was most influential in the development of early French film noir and arguably had some impact on its American counterpart.  His 1937 film L'Alibi contains many of the familiar trappings of the classic American B-movie crime-thriller and Le Dernier tournant (1939), cinema's first adaptation of James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, has film noir stamped all over it.  After a brief exile in Argentina during the war, Chenal resumed his filmmaking career in France, but never achieved the popularity he enjoyed in the 1930s.  Rafles sur la ville, his most inspired film in this second phase of his career, sees Chenal return to the world for which he seemed to have a natural affinity, a twilight world steeped in blood and shadows.

Montmartre proves to be a suitable setting for a deadly duel between a ruthless gangster (Charles Vanel at his most brutal) and a cynical cop (a young and debonair Michel Piccoli).  With its steeply angled back streets and tall implacable buildings, Montmartre by night has a naturally expressionistic feel, perfect for the film noir aesthetic which had its origins in German expressionism.  Just as in Melville's Bob le Flambeur (1955), the nocturnal exterior Parisian locations add much to the drama of the film and emphasise the desperate solitariness of the protagonists on both sides of the somewhat arbitrary criminal divide.  In the best tradition of the genre, the hunted hoodlum Le Fondu and hardnosed Inspector Vardier are two of a kind, not opposites but thuggish outsiders who fight by the same rules, equally prone to treachery and deceit.  As they wage their private war, Vardier driven by an all-consuming urge to avenge the death of a colleague, they follow almost exactly the same trajectory, and in the end they are brought down by the same thing, film noir's most essential ingredient: la femme fatale.

Despite the formulaic nature of its plot, Rafles sur la ville is easily one of the most stylish and compelling French policiers of its era, not quite in the league of Melville's sublime masterpieces but far superior to the majority of potboiler thrillers that came to dominate the French box office around this time.  Marcel Grignon's cinematography lends a suitably fatalistic mood to the film, the exterior locations being particularly well lit to heighten the sense of impending doom.  Chenal's mise-en-scène is slicker and sharper than any other film he made in this decade, and this gives the film a striking modernity that most thrillers of this period now patently lack.  In addition to the strong lead performances from Vanel and Piccoli, there is plenty of talent on offer in the supporting cast, with Marcel Mouloudji giving a surprisingly convincing turn as Vanel's treacherous nephew.  Scripted and directed with flair, Rafles sur la ville moves at a brisk pace, crams a fair number of heart-stopping moments into its modest runtime and ends (literally) with a bang.  Definitely not to be missed by any true connoisseur of classic French thriller.

Film Synopsis

The Parisian police are pleased with themselves when they manage to arrest the notorious gangster Le Fondu.  But the crook has no intention of being brought to justice.  In his escape, Le Fondu kills the police inspector who is pursuing him and is once more at liberty.  The dead cop᾿s best friend, Inspector Vardier, swears that he will do everything he can to capture Le Fondu and see him punished, although at present he has no idea where he is hiding.   That same day, Vardier meets his new assistant, Gilbert Barot, a young inspector with a very different temperament to his own.  Whilst he is not at all happy to work with Barot, Vardier is attracted to his beautiful wife, Lucie, and plans to make her his next amorous conquest.  Vardier begins his search for Le Fondu by visiting his nephew, Lucien Donati, nicknamed Le Niçois.  Meanwhile, Le Fondu is hiding in a friend᾿s cellar as he prepares his next robbery.  He takes as his mistress Cri-Cri, his friend᾿s daughter who works as a stripper in a cabaret.  Exercising his customary guile, Vardier tricks Donati into revealing his uncle᾿s hiding place, but Le Fondu has one last surprise...