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List Price: $29.95Amazon.com's Price: $26.99 You Save: $2.96 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780780029644
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 078002964X
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 18, 2005
Running Time: 96 minutes
Sales Rank: 23752
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: 1960
Editorial Review:
Description:
Jean Gabin is at his most wearily romantic as aging gangster Max le Menteur in the Jacques Becker gem Touchez pas au grisbi (Hands Off the Loot!). Having pulled off the heist of a lifetime, Max looks forward to spending his remaining days relaxing with his beautiful young girlfriend. But when Riton (René Dary), Max's hapless partner and best friend, lets word of the loot slip to loose-lipped, two-timing Josy (Jeanne Moreau), Max is reluctantly drawn back into the underworld. A touchstone of the gangster-film genre, Touchez pas au grisbi is also pure Becker—understated, elegant, evocative.
Amazon.com:
Grisbi isn't the hero's name but a bit of French slang meaning 'loot,' which is what drives this elegant Gallic crime thriller. Jean Gabin (Grand Illusion) stars as Max, a suave, smooth, elder statesman of a gangster who still manages to hook a pretty young damsel on his arm when he strolls into his favorite restaurants and nightclubs. Max belongs to the old world of criminals, where a romantic code of loyalty rules, but he's confronted by the postwar generation of ruthless, ambitious thugs when affable drug dealer and aspiring mob boss Angelo (Lino Ventura) discovers the secret of his loot. He strikes at Max's weak link, his thickheaded best friend and partner Riton (René Dary) and delivers an ultimatum: the money or the man. Director Jacques Becker (Antoine et Antoinette) takes his time with the tale, turning such digressions as a simple meal or an informal consultation into a fully realized scene with a rhythm and a drama all its own. He also enriches the film with a wonderful gallery of characters (including a small but delightful turn by young Jeanne Moreau as a pouty gold-digging chorus girl). The film sometimes dawdles but never drags, and every scene is energized by Gabin's cagey, confident Max, a worldly figure of grace and dignity who turns ruthless when a friend's life is at stake. --Sean Axmaker
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Act Your Age
Jean Gabin is sensational as a dapper old Parisian gangster who knows when his bedtime is. Not so his lovelorn buddy who lets slip to his younger showgirlfriend Jeanne Moreau about their last haul. When dope-dealing lug Lino Ventura cathes wind and plots to rip them off, it's time for Gabin to start slapping people.
Great scenes of Paris at night coupled with a terrific score make this a thrilling entertainment. And the picture looks stunning on this DVD.
It's amazing ... Read More
Rating: - A Giant of French Cinema.
There are not many words by which to describe the awesome 'combination' of the Sir Laurence Olivier/Marlon Brando 'version' of One of the most well-accomplished French Actors, ever to 'explode' upon the Silver Screen, the magnificent, Jean Gabin. This motion picture "Touchez Pas au Grisbi", is, about loyalty, the macho camaraderie binding the 'participants', as well as the unwritten law of never 'grassing up' your 'mates.' The word "loyalty" which is the clear message this film conveys, suggests, that, ... Read More
Rating: - Money makes the (under)world go round...
A classic! Don't miss it!
Un classique à ne pas manquer.
Rating: - masculine loneliness
Yes, it is about gangsters. But to any Continental old enough to have seen this movie first in a small suburban movie theater full of smoke (when the basic idea was 'I will grow up and do this kind of things'), then to have seen it again in late night showings on a black-and-white TV (when it was already slightly fading away, towards nostalgia), and finally in poor VHS and in the admirable Criterion edition, it will be mostly about growing old, and experiencing that specific form of loneliness that is one ... Read More
Rating: - Classic French gangster film . . .
This film, made in 1954, is an ironic look at an ageing gangster ready to go into retirement, having pulled off one last heist - several bars of gold - which gets him into a life and death conflict with several younger hoods plotting to steal it from him. He is accompanied by a long-time partner, and director Becker makes much of the friendship between them as they talk of getting too old for the life of night clubbing and show girls. Gabin is wonderful in this role, rarely smiling, often a little bored, while ... Read More
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