Jules Dassin

Quote:
The modern heist movie was invented in Paris in 1954 by Jules Dassin, with “Rififi,” and Jean-Pierre Melville, with “Bob le Flambeur.” Dassin built his film around a 28-minute safe-cracking sequence that is the father of all later movies in which thieves carry out complicated robberies. Working across Paris at the same time, Melville’s film, which translates as “Bob the High Roller,” perfected the plot in which a veteran criminal gathers a group of specialists to make a big score. The Melville picture was remade twice as “Ocean’s Eleven,” and echoes of the Dassin can be found from Kubrick’s “The Killing” to Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs.” They both owe something to John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950), which has the general idea but not the attention to detail.Read More »

Illia is Piraeus’s most popular person: an energetic prostitute, full of life and good humor.
Every day, she swims at the pier, entertaining the dock hands. Sundays she has an
open house with food, drink and song. Homer Thrace, an amateur philosopher from
Middletown, Conn., arrives in town to find out why Greece has fallen from ancient
greatness. He decides Illia is a symbol of that fall, so he sets out to study and to save
her. Unknown to Illia, he gets the money for the books and all else he gives her from Mr.
No Face, the local vice boss who wants Illia retired because her independence gives
other whores ideas. Whose spirit is stronger: Homer’s classical ideal or Illia’s?Read More »

Quote:
There are eight million stories in the Naked City,” as the narrator immortally states at the close of this classic film by Master noir craftsman Jules Dassin—and this is one of them. A model is found dead in the bathtub of her apartment, apparently after committing suicide. However, the coroner realizes that she was actually murdered with a simulation of suicide, and the experienced Homicide Lieutenant Detective Dan Muldoon initiates his investigations with Detective Jimmy Halloran and his team.Read More »

Synopsis
Two-bit hustler Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) aches for a life of ease and plenty. Trailed by an inglorious history of go-nowhere schemes, he stumbles upon a chance of a lifetime in the form of legendary wrestler Gregorius the Great (Stanislaus Zbyszko). But there is no easy money in this underworld of shifting alliances, bottomless graft, and pummeled flesh-and soon Fabian learns the horrible price of his ambition. Luminously shot in the streets of London, Jules Dassin’s Night and the City is film noir of the first order and one of the director’s crowning achievements.Read More »

David Cornelius wrote:
“Nine years after helping define the heist movie with the 1955 masterpiece “Rififi,” director Jules Dassin took another go at the genre, this time with a comedy. “Topkapi” is a lighter, breezier affair than Dassin’s earlier picture, but it’s in no way weaker or less memorable. In fact, it’s this movie that served as the inspiration for the classic TV series “Mission: Impossible,” and yes, it’s this film’s most memorable sequence that was, um, “borrowed” for the most memorable sequence of the 1996 “Impossible” movie.Read More »

Description: During a terrible thunderstorm, a married couple, Maria and Paul, travelling with their friend, Claire, take refuge in a small Spanish hotel. That night, while witnessing Paul and Claire making love, a distraught Maria spots a young man wanted for a crime of passion hiding on a rooftop. Compelled to help the murderer elude the authorities, Maria embarks on a dangerous journey that will change her life… forever.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Celu Qui Doit Mourir (He Who Must Die) represented director Jules Dassin’s first professional collaboration with his future wife, Greek actress Melina Mercouri. Filmed on the island of Crete, the story concerns the efforts by the townspeople to stage their annual Passion Play. The priest in charge of the play, anxious not to rock the boat with the occupying Turks, refuses aid and comfort to a rebellious priest from a battle-scarred village. But three townspeople do their best to help the visiting cleric, an act that splits the town right down the middle and forces the previously benevolent Turkish overlord to take decisive action. Melina Mercouri offers a dry run of her Never on Sunday character as the town trollop.Read More »