[Marxism] Jules Dassin: in memoriam

[Louis Proyect]

Rififi

Last night (July 27, 2000) I saw Jules Dassin's "Rififi" for the first 
time in over forty years. This noir tale of a jewelry heist gone bad is 
being shown at NYC's Film Forum during a 2-week special screening. The 
89 year old director and victim of the witch-hunt is in town for the 
event. In an interview in today's NY Times (July 28, 2000), Dassin 
explains the meaning of the film's title: "The title comes from the 
North African tribe, the Rifs, who were in constant conflict. So it's 
all about melees and conflicts and fighting, out of which the novelist 
Auguste Le Breton made the word 'rififi.'"

There is a lot of evidence that challenges to the mainstream pop culture 
of the 1950s owed much to the flickering embers of the 1930s and 40s 
radical movement. Even when the challenge was mounted in the name of the 
beat generation, the left played a role. To take one example, Lawrence 
Ferlinghetti, author of "Coney Island of the Mind" and founder of the 
San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, had deep roots in the anarchist and 
labor movement of that city.

Although "Rififi" was made in France in 1955, during the time Dassin was 
in exile, it eventually made its way into American movie theaters, 
including the Lyceum in Woodridge, a tiny resort village in the 
Catskills where I grew up. You can even argue that the first breach in 
the blacklist was "Rififi" rather than Dalton Trumbo's screenplay for 
"Spartacus."

Although the theater generally featured Martin and Lewis comedies or 
John Wayne westerns, it occasionally threw an "art movie" into the mix, 
especially during the busy summer months when relatively sophisticated 
Manhattanites were in town. I am sure that the fact that the young 
Hubert Selby Jr. was the Lyceum's assistant manager had something to do 
with this. Who knows, perhaps "Rififi's" dark, nihilist tones influenced 
Selby's great collection of stories, "Last Exit in Brooklyn." The film's 
ragbag of anti-heroes certainly did influence the New Wave in France, 
especially Godard's "Breathless."

The movie brings together four thieves, who are led by Tony Le 
Stéphanois (Jean Servais), just released from prison. Tony, a Gallic 
middle-aged version of Humphrey Bogart, is both consumptive and a chain 
smoker. This obviously self-destructive character trait sets the tone 
for the entire movie, one that can be characterized as existential 
futility in a fedora.

Tony has hooked up with his young protégé Jo the Swede (Carl Mohner), 
whom he protected from a prison sentence in the heist that got him sent 
up. Tony refused to name his accomplices because among thieves there is 
a code of honor. You should never rat on your friends. One can surmise 
that Dassin's screenplay must have put questions of loyalty into the 
foreground since so many of his friends and comrades had been ratted out 
by people like Elia Kazan and director Edward Dmytryk, who named Dassin 
in the hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities into 
Communist influence in Hollywood.

Jules Dassin told Pat McGilligan in "Tender Comrades" (co-authored by 
Paul Buhle): "They simply placed career before honour. It's that simple. 
The need to work is very strong. And particularly in the arts it's your 
life. Their betrayal is a continuing pain because these are the guys I 
loved."

Kazan of course made a movie called "On the Waterfront" that justified 
informing. The movie's greatness is a sign of how tragic the loss of 
Kazan was. In victimizing others, he victimized himself as well.

The other two thieves are Italians. Mario (Robert Manuel) lives in Paris 
and has worked with Jo the Swede in the past. Since they have decided to 
crack a safe in what amounts to the Tiffany's of Paris, they decide to 
bring in an expert from Italy. This is the dapper safecracker Cesar, 
played to the hilt by Dassin himself using the pseudonym Perlo Vita. 
When Cesar is first introduced to the glowering Tony, Tony tells him 
that he looks like he stepped out of a catalog. Cesar replies that Tony 
looks like a tramp. They then smile and shake hands.

The middle section of the movie is a tour de force. Without any dialogue 
whatsoever, it depicts the heist itself. The four thieves break into an 
apartment above the jewelry shop and break through the ceiling. Dassin 
directs the action with an obvious affection for physical labor. 
Watching the men work with drills is about as close as you will get to 
blue-collar labor on the wide screen during the 1950s.

Afterwards, Cesar makes the mistake of giving a diamond ring from the 
heist to a singer at a nightclub run by hoods who are Tony's foes. When 
he had been in prison, the owner had stolen his girl-friend Mado. When 
the rival hoods discover the ring, they make the connection between 
Cesar, who had shown up in the club with Tony and the other thieves, and 
the recent heist, news of which has been splashed across the front pages 
of the newspapers. The remainder of the film consists of a violent 
struggle to gain control of the loot.

"Rififi" was the first movie that Dassin made after a five year absence 
from the industry, forced upon him by the blacklist. It's success led to 
other jobs, all in Europe. Eventually he met and married Merlina 
Mercouri, who starred in another of his well-known movies, "Never On 
Sunday." Dassin moved to Greece and became a well-known figure on the 
Greek left, along with his wife. In recent years he has been involved 
with the campaign to return the Elgin marbles to Greece, a project 
Mercouri was very involved with until her death.

---

Topkapi

It would be nearly impossible for me to describe Turkish culture in the 
richness it deserves in this posting.

I would only recommend that you track down Jules Dassin's 1964 
masterpiece "Topkapi", which should be available in most well-stocked 
video stores. Filmed on location in Istanbul, it is a loving tribute to 
the city and the Mediterranean culture he learned to identify with so 
strongly after being witch-hunted out of Hollywood and after marrying 
the film's star Merlina Mercouri, another leftist.

Based on leftist Eric Ambler's novel "The Light of Day", the film is 
basically a comic version of Dassin's earlier jewel heist film "Rififi" 
(http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/Rififi.htm). Like 
"Rififi", it is the story of an elaborately prepared, but ultimately 
unsuccessful robbery. The climax of "Topkapi" involves a thief being 
lowered by his feet into the Treasury Room of Istanbul's most famous 
museum, formerly the castle of the Ottoman Emperor, in order to steal an 
emerald-encrusted dagger. "Mission Impossible" shamelessly ripped off 
this scene when Tom Cruise entered a high-security computer room 
suspended by his feet.

(In a twist on the plot of '"Topkapi", Jules Dassin has carried on with 
the crusade begun by the late Merlina Mercouri to return the Elgin 
Marbles to Greece, booty that was stolen by the British imperialists.)

You can see many examples of Istanbul's classic architecture in this 
film, which has sadly disappeared in recent years during the Los 
Angeles-ization of the city. You can also see everyday Turks on the 
street carrying bundles on their shoulders or selling goods, just as the 
case today. For gay comrades, one of the highlights of the film is a 
wrestling match that can only be described as tantalizingly homoerotic.