We now have a library card for the Strasbourg city library. In France you have to pay an annual fee for a library card. There are actually two different prices, one if you wish to only check out books, and another, higher prices card that allows you two check out multi-media items such as DVDs. Hearing that they had a selection of over 900 DVDs Amy and I decided we would shell out the expense of getting that type of card. We calculated that even if you only check out one move per week for the remaining time we are here, we would still come out cheaper than if we rented the same amount of films. The funny thing about their movies, is that they almost never have any. Out of the 900 owned, there is usually only 6 or 7 of them available for check out at any time. We have been lucky in still being able to find films that we would like to see. Both Rope and The Man Who Knew Too Much both came from the library.
This week I picked up Rififi in Paris thinking it was an old bank robber movie that I have heard good things about. Unfortunately, that film is entitled just Rififi. I am unsure if this is supposed to be a sequel or if it is just a coincidence in title. There is limited information on The Internet Movie Data Base, and it wasn't good enough to really look further than that.
The basic story of this film is that an American agent, Charles Binnagio (George Raft),is working undercover in Paris to stop a French group of gangsters. Working through his contact with a high class hooker, he begins working for the gangsters by smuggling Gold to Tokyo. After saving second in command mobster, Paulo Berger's (Jean Gabin)life, Binnaggio is promoted to Berger's bodyguard. Excitement ensues.
Due to complications involving the regional coding of the DVD I could only watch this film in an English dubbed version. I am universally opposed to dubbed movies, and try my best to only watch films in their original languages with subtitles if necessary. Watching this in the dubbed format was like slow torture. The plot was rather complicated to follow and I am not sure how much too blame on the language problem. What I was able to follow was resolutely bad.
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