The Upper Hand             

Aka - Du rififi à Paname


I never thought I would say these words. This film needed more George Raft. As soon as he shows up for his few minutes and faces off against Jean Gabin, the film moves to a new level. Two legendary actors who played gangsters and good guys for four decades but were separated by a great ocean. Always the tough guys, the I can take whatever you dish out guys. Raft's career had slowed down by the mid-50s and a few terrible career decisions - turning down the Maltese Falcon and High Sierra and leaving Warners - but he looks great here. And Gabin never slowed down - a star from the early 1930s to the mid-70s. His hair turned white by the 50's when he played Maigret and other hard as nails characters but he always had swagger and a morality that could go either way and kept the audience on their toes. Together for just a few moments - both wanting to kill the other. An iconic moment of sorts.


A gangster film with Gabin and Raft and let me throw in another close to legendary name Gert Fröbe of Goldfinger fame should have had more sizzle, more tension, more excitement and I can't quite figure out why it doesn't. It has the ingredients - a couple shoot-outs, swanky clubs, a good plot - but it just never really sucks you in. It may be that everyone underplays their characters to a fault. They could be running a laundry service instead of a criminal enterprise by the way they act. As if they are sending shirts to Tokyo instead of gold smuggling. No one comes across as evil, just making a living. Part of that is killing of course if necessary.


Gabin and his partner Fröbe have their hands into a few things but their main enterprise is smuggling gold into Japan where they can sell it for a lot more than they bought it for. They get men with no records but a need for quick cash to carry it in. These men are sourced from an intriguing bar full of beautiful women who take them into a cozy room where the curtains can be closed but the expensive champagne never stops. They make the men fall in love, buy them jewelry and act stupid to the point where they need money.


Mike (Claudio Brook) is seemingly one of these guys but is in fact a US Treasury agent. He allows himself to be pulled into the gang. Law enforcement is interested in the gold but even more so that Fröbe is exporting parts to Cuba. Remember the sanctions? Oh that's right. Sixty years later, we still have them. But the gold operation comes to the attention of the Mafia and they want in and start killing their way in. Gabin is old school. You get punched, you punch back. Even against the Mafia. Good plot right? But it meanders around at times - dips into romantic melodrama and Gabin and Fröbe just seem rather bored. Maybe I was expecting too much.

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