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Finally getting around to Jule Dassin in my noir quest.Naked City is excellent. Looking forward to Rififi, Thieves Highway, and Night and the City. Brute Force, I think I'll skip. Extremely violent and even Dassin said the way the prisoners were portrayed in the beginning was stupid.
BTW, what was with the blacklisting? Was he a member of the communist party?
Follow Ups:
It's been so long since I've seen Brute Force I don't really remember it well.However the others you mention are excellent.
Enjoy.
A New Yorker and son of a Russian-Jewish parents, Dassin certainly leaned left of center (as did many others during the depression) but he was hardly a subversive.He was outed as a communist to HUAC in the early 50's. Darryl Zanuck had hired Dassin to write the script for Night & The City, then sent him to London to shoot it, mostly so Dassin wouldn't be be in the US and have to appear before HUAC.
In an interview on the Criterion collection DVD of N&TC, Dassin reveals that Zanuck told him Night & The City would be his last film for a Hollywood studio, advising him to shoot the most expensive scenes first, so that the studio would have to allow him to complete it to recoup their investment.
Dassin was indeed subsequently blacklisted and did not return to the US for many years. European producers were apparently told that any films with Dassin's name in the credits would not be released in the US.
Dassin moved to France, where, after several years of being unable to make movies at all, he took a job for hire directing an adaptation of a french crime novel. That film, Rafiffi, was transformed by Dessin's craftsmanship into one of the greatest noirs of all time. The 30 minute heist scene is a cinema classic.
Dassin was also married to actress/Greek freedom activist Melina Mercouri, with whom he made the Academy Award nominated Never On Sunday (the eponymous song from which did take the Oscar.)
For intelligent and beautifully crafted noir, Dassin can't be beat. He was a huge influence on the French New Wave, especially Truffaut, who called Riffifi the best noir he ever saw.
Dassin was later involved in several US projects, including at least 2 Broadway shows (one an adpatation of NOS called Ilya Darling) as well as the clever crime film Topkapi (early 60's), which won Peter Ustinov a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Boasting a twisty plot, exotic locations and a fine, international cast, Topkapi influenced generations of light hearted, clever caper flicks e.g. How To Steal A Million, The Thomas Crown Affair et al. It's also been reported that the movie was the inspiration for the original Mission Impossible TV series.
As you may have noticed, I'm a big Dassin fan - get the Criterion editions where available if you can, for the informative extras.
I've heard that Riffifi and Topkapi are to be remade this year - news that fills me with dread. Riffifi doesn't need to be remade, and Topkapi has been remade many times (more or less) in other guises.
If you like Dassin, you simply must-see another French crime film (also highly influenctial), Melville's Bob Le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler). Not to be missed.
By driving people away HUAC had the unintended result of developing cinema across Europe, whilst... oh, hell who needs me to tell them what a waste that period of US paranoia was?
I saw Riffifi last year at the World Cinema Club as part of a series of classic crime films and it was riveting.
Thanks for the background on the Zanuck stuff, back when film people were in the business of making films.
sdfg
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