Review of Bob le Flambeur (1956) by Rick R — 12 Nov 2009

Bob le Flambeur (1956).

Bob the gambler is a great french caper movie. Not quite Noir, in my opinion, but an excellent movie by Jean-Pierre Melville. And this makes me very interested in French New Wave and seeing more of Melville's films as well.

Robert 'Bob' Montagné (Roger Duchesne) is a gambler and former gangster. He's well known in town; even by his cop friend, Commissaire Ledru (Guy Decomble) who he had saved his life at one time. Bob is a chronic gambler who loses as much as he wins, but he's always generous with his friends.

He runs into a beautiful young girl, Anne (Isabelle Corey) and lets her crash at his place a few times. There's a lot of sexual tension between them, but he's very stand-offish and is happy to hand her over to his young protogé, Paolo (Daniel Cauchy) when he shows an interest.

Naturally, when you're on a losing streak you tend to fall back on some bad habits and Bob is tempted to get a crew put together to steal from a Casino. One thing that I really liked is that the film showed off the many games Bob would play and the casinos in the area (as well as Isabelle Corey).