Does Jules Dassin only have ONE great film?

I just watched his “Brute Force” from 1947 with the great Burt Lancaster and the guy who played his coach Pop Warner in Jim Brown All American, and I am about to watch “Thieves Highway”. I thought that Brute Force was good, but there were things that kept it from being a great film-namely most of the flash backs, they were just too corny.

Rififi is a masterpiece of suspense and crime drama. One of the best. But other films of his that I have seen just have not impressed me as much, including Night and the City and Naked City. I also own a copy of Topkapi, 10:30 PM Sumer, and “Never on Sunday”, but I haven’t gotten around to those yet, but am beginning to lose heart.

HIs best film, Rififi, was made in 1955, and he only made 3 other films that entire decade, and I am beginning to think that he was only able to catch lightning in a bottle once.

What do you guys think?

No. He has several.

I’ve never been blown away by any Jules Dassin film. I can recall watching Thieves’ Highway for the first time and thinking to myself “Apples? Fucking apples?!” Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a ripe Golden Delicious as much as the next man, but…APPLES? Granted, Clouzot basically stole the tension in the tire changing scene for The Wages of Fear, but, be that as it may, I don’t truck with no movie about apples.

Please see Night and the City before leaping to this conclusion. Its not quite as good as Rififi, but its damn close.

I’ve seen Night and the City.

I will give it another viewing in the future, but like you said, its not Rififi.

“The Law” (La Loi) Comes out in September 2010 on DVD from Oscilloscope Laboratories in the US and is out in Italy via SDVD.

I’d see that on Amazon. Is it on the level of Rififi, or is it on the level of some of his other work?

I’m sold on that poster of The Law. Can’t wait for the film. I love Dassin. Theives’ Highway might arouse aversion from those who do not want to see a little social neorealism incorporated into a film noir from that era (how do you like dem apples, giveusacuddle?), but it is a masterpierce. I could imagine, Jason, your politics might preclude appreciation of it (although I’ll give you some credit for being able to appreciate the work of a blacklisted communist at all).

NIght and the City is his greatest film.

Du Riffifi Chez les Hommes is fun, but it’s no Night and the City.

i keep forgetting Thieves Highway was directed by him.i grew up with that fim. my dad loves it.

watched Night and the City just recently and quite enjoyed it. much better than Naked City

I also feel “Thieves Highway” is a masterpiece. One of those films that didn’t get nearly enough attention, until Criterion picked it up. When I first saw it it struck me as a powerful film with poetic moments of brilliance. The acting is amazing and the film is full of emotion. I still say its a woefully underrated noir. If you’re worried about the apples in the film, you’re completely blinding yourself to everything else going on. The apples are a classical MacGuffin. It could be anything on those trucks, or nothing at all. Just the drive to survive in a cold world is what counts.

When you talk about “The Naked City”, you’re talking about THE prototypical semi-documentary crime film. So influential that it spawned a television series. I don’t know how Dassin can ever be underrated just based on this film alone.

“Night and the City” is considered by some to be the archetypal film noir. Not that “film noir” in and of itself is a mark of quality. But when you’re talking about great films noir, you’re really talking about some of the greatest films in Hollywood of the 40s and 50s and some of the most influential in the world.

“Rififi” is a masterpiece to be sure. Honestly, I don’t even have it rated highly in Dassin’s canon. Give me “Thieves Highway” any day. And the fact of the matter is, I know literally nothing about Dassin’s career post-Hollywood. So my rendering of opinions ends here.

^^The Naked City is almost too definitive for its own good then. because i found it completely bland and uninteresting. didn’t react that way to his other fims though, at least the ones i saw anyway

I actually prefer The Naked City, Thieves’ Highway, and Night and the City to Riffifi, which really isn’t as good, imo, as the film that influenced it The Asphalt Jungle or (as Godard said) the later French crime films it influenced, Becker’s Touchez pas au grisbi and Melville’s Bob le flambeur . . . the the protracted dialogue/music free heist scene is outstanding. The film weakens significantly toward the end. Brute Force is, if not great, very good. The Mecouri films are interesting, Jason, but I guessing not to your taste (you could ask Dimitris what he thinks of the portayal of Greek culture in Never on Sunday :) ), with the possible exception of Topkapi, which is a heist film, but stylistically in the opposite direction from the other heist films Dassin made.

Naked City is one of the greatest police procedural’s ever made. In fact I’d probably place it just barely below Takeshi Kitano’s Violent Cop as the second greatest police film ever made.

Night and the City, too ranks among the greatest noir films ever made. I was amazed at how Gene Tierney is only in a single scene in the beginning of the film but her incredible performance in that scene and the manner in which things are presented in the film almost forces you to think about how she would feel in every decision Richard Widmark makes. Her performance literally resonates in ever scene she’s not in and Widmark is no slouch himself.

My limited exposure to Dassin leads me to believe he’s one of the best genre filmmakers Hollywood ever saw… and certainly the greatest they ever got rid of.

I agree that “Rififi” isn’t half the film that “Asphalt Jungle” is, or “Touchez pas” for that matter. “Bob le flambeur” didn’t do much for me. “Rififi” is probably the best heist on film, but nowhere near the best heist film. It doesn’t even have a prayer of competing with “The Killing”.

-“Rififi” is probably the best heist on film, but nowhere near the best heist film.-

That’s a nice way of putting it, yeah.

-^^The Naked City is almost too definitive for its own good then. because i found it completely bland and uninteresting.-

Maybe it depends on how invested you are in that period/genre of filmmaking?

There’s so many inventive things in “Naked City”. For one that great, ironic, reflexive voice-over. And the final chase on the bridge. That’s iconic Hollywood stuff.

matt and bobby: it is iconic, for sure, but i guess i had just seen so many rip offs by the time i saw it(2008) that it didn’t leave an impession on me, whereas Riffi and Night and the city did.

maybe i’ll give it another look in the future.

It’s hard to see older stuff in context sometimes, and of course even then somethings just don’t spark for you.

I’ll likely being seeing The Law on 35mm tonight (gasp!). It’ll be my first Dassin. If I see it, I’ll post my thoughts here afterward.

You have to take into account the effect of his blacklisting. I haven’t seen Brute Force yet, but The Naked City, Thieves’ Highway, and Night and the City are great movies, and if you were a producer looking for a director for an “A” noir or action/drama in the late 1940s, he might have been your second choice after John Huston. Instead, he had to spend the next five years making connections and figuring out how things worked in Europe.

The Canterville Ghost is a nice fantasy comedy that updates the story to the present (World War II), while Topkapi is well made but seems a less interesting variation on Rififi.

All of these movies are worth watching, and suggest that Dassin could have been a major director but for the blacklist.

I think Dassin was a major director. He has the filmography to prove it. He’s certainly remembered and loved.

It’s always interesting to me when people describe not being affected by an original film that introduces something unique just because they’ve been desensitized by the millions of copies that came after. That privileged knowledge alone makes me in awe of the original all the more and increases my appreciation.

“The work of art answers, not to the need of knowing something new, which is peculiar to the ages of fashion where curiosity is excited by the very stimulants which come in from outside, but to the truly loving need of seeing again, of finding again with tireless and ever keener eagerness, that which one has already known and loved…” — Gabriel Tarde

“It’s always interesting to me when people describe not being affected by an original film that introduces something unique just because they’ve been desensitized by the millions of copies that came after. That privileged knowledge alone makes me in awe of the original all the more and increases my appreciation.”

i was affected by the films of Fellini, Antonioni, Welles etc in this regard,which increased my appreciation for their artistry and influence, but in the case of Naked City, it just didn’t click.

as i said before, i’ll go back to it eventually

Very well said, Bobby. I concur entirely.

I probably should have said “would be more widely regarded as a major director.” I am reluctant to call him a major director because I need to see a few more films before I go that far, but I have been impressed by the ones that I have seen.

Without knowing He Who Must Die, my favorite Dassin is Thieves’ Highway and there are two or three additional films that I prefer to Rififi.

@Bobby Wise. Thanks for the kind words regarding Jules Dassin. I have always considered your thoughts on film noir to be most insightful and have thought of you as the sites resident expert. I completely agree with you regarding viewers who seem to be “desensitized” to an originals work, which is certainly the case with the heist scene from Riffi. Dassins film work form 1947 thru 1950 is indeed extraordinary, he seemed to find his voice and a method for delivering it. The years lost because of his blacklisting…… I have always regarded as a crime against the arts.

Thanks. I’d say an even greater blacklist crime against the arts was Abraham Polonsky. At least Dassin went on to make plenty of other films. Polonsky was really crushed right at the dawning of his directorial talents. And how great of a debut was “Force of Evil”!

Personally, my favorite Dassin film is 10:30 PM Summer. It really caught me off guard since I didn’t expect anything like it after Tokapi and Never on a Sunday. I also prefer Night and the City to Riffifi, and think of Naked City as being more or less equal to Riffifi, as far as one can compare the two.

I can’t go with the archetypal noir status for Night and the city, although I know many do see it that way, since it remains so centered around the specific foibles of the central character and doesn’t universalize his state into a more existential darkness like some of the other noirs do. Heck, he even manages a sort of redemption in the end. However, that’s only thinking of the film in terms of “noirishness” and what would constitute the fullest example of that idea. On it’s own terms, it’s great and doesn’t need to be hitched to genre thinking for those merits to be recognized.

The “noirishness” of that redemption is that it lands him in the bottom of the river! But true, no film needs to be hitched to genre thinking for merits to be recognized. Regarding Dassin, you can easily argue that “Thieves Highway” transcends noir or any other genre categorization.