''Du rififi chez les femmes'' ("The Riff Raff Girls") is a French-Italian film directed by
Alex Joffé
Alex Joffé (18 November 1918 – 18 August 1995) was a French film director and screenwriter, known for ''Les cracks'' (1968), ''Fortunat'' (1960) and ''La grosse caisse'' (1965). He was the father of the director Arthur Joffé, as well as Mari ...
and released in
1959
Events
January
* January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...
.
Plot
In
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
, rival criminal gangs confront each other. One is led by Vicky, proprietor of a nightclub on a barge; the other by Bug, who wants to reign over the lucrative nightlife business. Vicky and her gang, who are planning a bank raid, are going to see their plans confounded by Bug. In effect, he is being manipulated by a police officer who forces him to help break up a drug trafficking deal in return for keeping his residence in
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
. Bug and Yoko will strongly compromise the bank raid, believing that it is linked to the drugs.
Book
The film is based on the Auguste Le Breton novel, ''Du rififi chez les femmes'', published in 1957 and reprinted in 2010.Éditions Plon web site Du rififi chez les femmes (accessed 11 February 2012)
Production
* Director:
Alex Joffé
Alex Joffé (18 November 1918 – 18 August 1995) was a French film director and screenwriter, known for ''Les cracks'' (1968), ''Fortunat'' (1960) and ''La grosse caisse'' (1965). He was the father of the director Arthur Joffé, as well as Mari ...
* Screenplay: Alex Joffé,
José Giovanni
José Giovanni (22 June 1923, Paris, France – 24 April 2004, Lausanne, Switzerland) was the pseudonym of Joseph Damiani, a French writer and film-maker of Corsican origin who became a naturalized Swiss citizen in 1986.
A former collaborationi ...
, Gabriel Arout, James-Jacques Mage and Auguste Le Breton from his novel ''Du rififi chez les femmes'' (1957,
Presses de la Cité
Press may refer to:
Media
* Publisher
* News media
* Printing press, commonly called "the press"
* Press TV, an Iranian television network
Newspapers United States
* ''The Press'', a former name of '' The Press-Enterprise'', Riverside, Californi ...
)
* Dialogue: Auguste Le Breton
* Music:
Louiguy
Louis Guglielmi (3 April 1916 – 4 April 1991), known by his pen name Louiguy (), was a Spanish-born French people, French musician of Italian descent. He wrote the melody for Édith Piaf's lyrics of "La Vie en Rose" and the Latin jazz com ...
* Song: ''Rififi'', words by
Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour ( ; ; ; born Shahnur Vaghinak Aznavourian; 22 May 1924 – 1 October 2018) was a Armenians in France, French singer and songwriter of Armenian descent. Aznavour was known for his distinctive vibrato tenor voice: clear and ringi ...
and music by Louiguy, sung by
Nadja Tiller
Nadja Tiller (16 March 1929 – 21 February 2023) was an Austrian actress in film, television, and on stage. She was one of the most popular German-speaking actresses in the international cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, receiving international re ...
Pierre Balmain
Pierre Alexandre Claudius Balmain (; 18 May 1914 – 29 June 1982) was a French fashion designer and founder of leading post-war fashion house Balmain (fashion house), Balmain. Known for sophistication and elegance, he described the art of dre ...
* Stills photographer: Walter Limot
* Country: France, Italy
* Filming:
** Language: French
** Interiors: Studios de Boulogne-Billancourt (
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a department in the Île-de-France region of France. It covers Paris's western inner suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the east, Val-d'Oise to the north, Yvelines to the west and ...
)
** Exteriors: Brussels
* Producer: James-Jacques Mage
* Director of production:
Jacques Plante
Joseph Jacques Omer Plante (; January 17, 1929 – February 27, 1986) was a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender. During a career lasting from 1947 to 1975, he was considered to be one of the most important innovators in hockey. He played ...
* Production companies: Les Productions de l'Étoile, Dismage, Transalpina, Technostampa
* Distribution company: Cinedis
*
Aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...
:
black and white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
monaural
Monaural sound or monophonic sound (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduce so ...
* Genre:
Crime film
Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...
* Length: 110 min
* Release date: 20 May 1959
Cast
*
Nadja Tiller
Nadja Tiller (16 March 1929 – 21 February 2023) was an Austrian actress in film, television, and on stage. She was one of the most popular German-speaking actresses in the international cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, receiving international re ...
: Vicky
*
Robert Hossein
Robert Hossein (30 December 1927 – 31 December 2020) was a French film actor, director, and writer. He directed Les Misérables (1982 film), the 1982 adaptation of ''Les Misérables'' and appeared in ''Vice and Virtue'', ''Le Casse'', ''Les U ...
: Marcel Point-Bleu
*
Silvia Monfort
Silvia Monfort (, born Simone Marguerite Favre-Bertin , 6 June 1923 – 30 March 1991) was a French actress and theatre director. She was the daughter of Charles-Maurice Favre-Bertin, a French sculptor, decorator, and medalist, and was the ...
: Yoko
*
Roger Hanin
Roger Hanin (born Roger Levy, 20 October 1925 – 11 February 2015) was a French actor and film director, best known for playing the title role in the TV police drama, '' Navarro''.
Career
Roger Hanin was born in 1925 in Algiers, Algeria as Rog ...
: Bug
*
Pierre Blanchar
Pierre Blanchar (; 30 June 1892 – 21 November 1963) was a French actor. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1922 and 1961. Blanchar was married to actress Marthe Vinot, with whom he had a daughter, actress Dominique Blanchar. He pl ...
Jean Gaven
Jean Gaven (16 January 1918 – 5 May 2014) was a French actor. He appeared in more than sixty films between 1945 and 1996.
Life and career
Born in Saint-Rome-de-Cernon
Saint-Rome-de-Cernon (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Ave ...
: James
*
Eddie Constantine
Eddie Constantine (born Israel Constantine; October 29, 1913 – February 25, 1993) was an American singer, actor and entertainer who spent most of his career in France. He became well-known to film audiences for his portrayal of secret agent L ...
Daniel Emilfork
Daniel Emilfork (7 April 1924 – 17 October 2006) was a Chilean stage and film actor who made his career in France.
Biography
Emilfork was born in San Felipe, Chile after his Jewish socialist parents from Kiev fled a pogrom in Odessa. At ...
: Luigi
* Wayne Van Voorhes : Chicago, the Sicilian
* André Cellier : the transporter
* Denise Clair : Prune
*
Michel Galabru
Michel Louis Edmond Galabru (27 October 19224 January 2016) was a French actor.
Career
Galabru appeared in more than 250 films and worked with directors such as Bertrand Blier, Costa-Gavras, Luc Besson (for '' Subway''), and Jean-Luc Godard.
...
*
Lucien Raimbourg
Lucien Raimbourg (1903–1973) was a French film, stage and television actor. He appeared in the original performance of Samuel Beckett's ''Waiting for Godot''.Blair p.421
Selected filmography
* '' L'affaire est dans le sac'' (1932) - Le client m ...
*
Maurice Garrel
Maurice Garrel (24 February 1923 – 4 June 2011) was a French film actor.
Garrel was born in Saint-Servais, Isère. He appeared in over a hundred films and was nominated twice for a César Award for best supporting actor: in 1991 for ''La ...
* Carlo Campanini
*
Tiberio Murgia
Tiberio Murgia (5 February 1929 – 20 August 2010) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films between 1958 and 2009.
Biography
Born into a humble family, Murgia began working as a laborer from an early age. At the age of ...
Liliane de Kermadec
Liliane de Kermadec (6 October 1928 – 13 February 2020) was a Polish-French film director and screenwriter. She directed more than twenty films and documentaries between 1965 and 2016.
Career
Liliane de Kermadec began as a set photographe ...
*
Claude Piéplu
Claude Léon Auguste Piéplu (9 May 1923, Paris – 24 May 2006, Paris) was a French theatre, film and television actor. He was known for his hoarse and frayed voice.Anne-Marie Coffinet
*
André Berthomieu
André Berthomieu (; 16 February 1903 – 10 April 1960) was a French screenwriter and film director. He was married to the actress Line Noro.
Selected filmography
Director
* '' Not So Stupid'' (1928)
* '' The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard'' (1929)
...
*
Yves Barsacq
Yves Barsacq (17 June 1931 – 4 October 2015) was a French film actor, who appeared in more than 150 films. He is the son of the French-Russian production designer Léon Barsacq and the nephew of the French theatre director André Barsacq ...
*
Don Ziegler
Don Ziegler was an American film actor, living in Paris''The Saturday Evening Post'', June 4, 1960, p. 36. and active in French cinema in the 1950s and early 1960s, usually playing foreigners.
Selected Filmography
* ''Holiday for Henrietta'' ...