Bob Le Flambeur
1955 – Dir – Jean-Pierre Melville starring Roger Duchesne
What can I say about Bob le flambeur? I have watched this movie a few times and will watch it again if only to see those great 1950s street scenes of Quartier Pigalle again. Firstly the movie is a classic gangster noir centred around the main character Bob (Roger Duchesne) who is a slightly aging some may say over it high roller (Flambeur). His best days are definitely behind him and he is also on a run of bad luck that is seeing his cash flow seriously compromised.
A creature of the night he ambles from club to club, bar to bar, card game to card game about the Montmatre-Pigalle district of Paris chasing lady luck only to return to his swish atomica styled apartment overlooking the Sacré Cœur, tired, unshaven and outta luck (all shot very beautifully by Henri Decaë in stark black and white using all of those tasty noir shadowy tricks to great effect).
At first it looks as though this is going to end up running the lines of a straight gangster noir episode and a seemingly femme fatal is introduced early on in the piece in the shape of a very much younger than Bob, Anne. Bob finds here wandering the sleazy streets of Pigalle at dawn, takes her under his wing and gives her a bed to sleep in. Bob sleeps on the couch and the relationship doesn’t develop further. Not in the traditional sense. Bob has almost a fatherly approach to Anne which is a nice twist on the genre and you get the feeling he really does have her best interests at heart.
We are introduced to a range of other half weight gangsters, pimps and shysters as well as the local inspector who all have the utmost respect for Bob. But respect doesn’t pay the bills and eventually, as Bob realises drastic measures are needed to arrest his decline, a “job” is organised and the film starts to morph into a classic heist movie.
If I go on I will spoil the plot. But needless to say the French don’t do Hollywood or traditional endings so you can expect a twist. And it twists so well.
It is said that this movie influenced the New Wave of French cinema that was soon to follow and you can definitely see similarities, especially in the way the movie is shot, in Truffauts Les Quatre Cents Coups and Godard’s À bout de soufflé.
Apart from all that, there are a lot of really pleasing components to this movie. The light (or lack of), the script, the acting, the cinematography, the setting – it all comes together perfectly. You realise your are watching not just a well crafted flick but a piece of French cinema history unfold in front of you.
Ian Freeman November 2014
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