The lightest movie of Jean-Pierre Melville's career, BOB LE FLAMBEUR is the story of an aging gambler and his attempt to end a lifelong streak of bad luck by pulling off the ultimate heist. Considered an important precursor of the French New Wave, this low-budget film was described by its
creator as "not a pure policier, but a comedy of manners" and also as "a love-letter to Paris."
Bob the Gambler (Roger Duchesne), a 50-year-old ex-thief who is down on his luck, is seated in a cafe with Paulo (Daniel Cauchy), an admiring young protege, when in walks Anne (Isabelle Corey), a sexy teenager, accompanied by Marc (Gerard Buhr), a pimp. Bob scares Marc off and then treats Anne to
dinner, lectures her, and stakes her to a hotel bed while Paulo flirts with her. Days later, Bob puts Anne up in his apartment, no strings attached; he soon finds that Paulo and she have become romantically involved. Bob and his friend, Roger (Andre Garret), visit the Deauville Casino, where Roger
bumps into Jean (Claude Cerval), an old pal and now a croupier. Jean tells Roger that the casino safe contains hundreds of millions of francs. Roger relays the information to Bob, who decides to hold the place up.
Melville wrote the initial draft of BOB LE FLAMBEUR before he had seen THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950). Realizing that he couldn't match the grim power of the John Huston caper classic, he turned his own scenario into something of a comedy. In the title role of Bob, he cast Duchesne, who had been a
major French star before WWII but had since drifted into shadier areas of employment. The director discovered 15-year-old Corey on a Paris street and cast her as Anne. Alarmingly closer to "fille" fatale than a femme fatale, the seductively insouciant Anne became, in Corey's hands, one of the
screen's great erotic figures of the 1950s.
At once a charming entertainment, a resonant character study, an ironic morality tale, and a bittersweet celebration of Montmartre, BOB LE FLAMBEUR reinforces Melville's reputation as one of history's premier filmmakers in the same way that Shakespeare's comedies enhance his reputation as a major
tragedian. In foregrounding the wit and drollery that lurk beneath the surface of such weighty masterpieces as LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES (1949) and LE SAMOURAI (1967), BOB LE FLAMBEUR rounds out Melville's resume and secures him a berth in the cinema's pantheon. leave a comment