Rififi

After escaping the blacklist in the U.S., director Jules Dassin found himself making films in Europe. The first part of the film involves four thieves getting together and planning a daring robbery. The second part is the robbery itself which is half hour virtuoso sequence in which the robbery is performed with no dialogue or music. The final part involves the kidnapping of one of the robbers sons by another bunch of thieves in order to obtain the loot. The robbery has become a famous piece of cinema in its own right, and it really keeps your eyes glued to the screen, but the real success of the film comes in the final part when they are forced to realize that crime doesn't pay. I sense that this film had quite and influence on Jean Pierre Melville who began making films at about this time that felt very similar to Rififi. Truffaut once called this the greatest film noir he'd ever seen and that's quite a compliment.