This movie is extremely polished and well-made. It stacks up very well to even the best American film noir movies and is about the best French gangster film I have seen. Apart from THE KILLERS, DOA and possibly KISS OF DEATH, it's with very few equals----except for THE KILLING and RIFIFI. THE KILLING has a suspiciously similar plot and it came out a year AFTER BOB LE FLAMBEURe could be said for RIFIFI--so I assume that these plots were "heisted" or it was simply a remake. Yes, there are a few differences, but the basic plot line is pretty much intact. Though, because this was a French film, a few gratuitous boobs were tossed into the melange that you won't see in THE KILLING and only see briefly in RIFIFI. You certainly would NOT have seen that in Hollywood in 1955! I think another reason I liked the film so much was also due to when it was made. Had it been made just a few years later (when the French New-Wave movement began in the later 50s), the artistic touches and excellent camera work would have been abandoned in favor of Godard's or Truffaut's style (as seen in movies such as Breathless and Shoot the Piano Player). I, for one, prefer the older and more artistic style of noir.
Review of Bob the Gambler
