Guns for Hire

Original Gangster

Pepe le Moko (Pepe le Moko), Julien Duvivier, 1937

This archetypal example of French cinema’s poetic realism, which is gritty and boasts flashes of cinematic trickery, is widely seen as a precursor to Film Noir. Starring the inimitable Jean Gabin in his fourth collaboration with director Duvivier, it’s the story of a gangster on the run from police in Algiers’ casbah, and who feels secure in this labyrinthine underworld. But the police inspector trailing him hopes to use Pepe’s new love for a Parisian tourist to lure his prey out of the safety zone. ‘Moko’ is the nickname for someone from Toulon, but the title was deemed unsuitably vague for American remakes; Algiers (1938) and musical Casbah (1948). The film made Gabin an international star and soon brought him to Jean Renoir’s attention, resulting in lead roles in La Grande Illusion and La Bête Humaine.

Transatlantic Origins

Du Rififi Chez les Hommes (Rififi), Jules Dassin, 1955

To get to grips with Franco-American gangster movie cross-referencing, it’s important to acknowledge the role of Julius ‘Jules’ Dassin. Prior to helming this tense showstopper, which would inspire the genre for decades – the heist sequence would later be ‘borrowed’ for Ocean’s Eleven and Mission: Impossible – Dassin was a successful cog in the Hollywood machine. That is until he became embroiled in the ‘red scare’. Forced to move to France, he utilised a meagre $20,000 budget to transform Auguste Le Breton’s slang-heavy novel into a three-act classic dealing with ‘one last job’, doomed love and low-life betrayal. The film bagged Dassin the 1956 Cannes Best Director prize and the plaudits of then critic François Truffaut, who declared it the best Noir he’d ever seen.