Wednesday, November 12, 2008






As a personal aside, the scenes with the car in Touchez pas au grisbi bring to mind something that happened to me when I was younger. It was in my college years, during a period where I regularly drove back and forth from Los Angeles to where I lived in the high desert because there was nothing to do in our town. One night, on the opposite side of the freeway, I saw a car stopped in the middle of the road, its headlights on, and a man on his hands and knees in front of it, facing the vehicle. No one else saw it. I was driving, and my passengers insisted I was crazy. But I know I did, I know it was there.

I guess it's neither here nor there, and it seems like something out of a modern rural crime picture than Jacques Becker, but Grisbi makes me think of it all the same.

This was prepared as part of my review of the boxed set 10 Years of Rialto Pictures for

1 comment:

Richard Karpel said...

It’s Max le Menteur, and menteur is French for “liar” not mentor. Doesn’t make sense to me either. Probably taken from the book, which I understand is very different than the movie.