The generally positive reviews for this film baffle me. Some movies wear well with age. This one, made nearly sixty years ago, hobbles along on crutches. It is billed as 'a crime thriller' and 'gangster movie' but NOTHING HAPPENS! Jean-Pierre Melville had no experience of directing a movie before he put this together and, even with the help (or perhaps because) of rewrites from Jean Cocteau, the action remains comatose, the narrative entirely linear. It looks like the work of an amateur, though admittedly Paris in 1956 is shot atmospherically. The cigarette count is as high as the body count is low. What gangster or flambeur (the French argot for 'gambler') was ever called 'Bob'? Bob is a name you give your pet Labrador - it's a light comedy name. This particular entirely uncharismatic Bob wanders around from one gambling den to another in a one-expression performance. Other characters are poorly defined by the script or weakly acted by an inexperienced cast. The music (of which there is much) is as intrusive as it is frequently inappropriate. Don't believe the film pseuds. Mickey Spillane or Dashiell Hammett it ain't.
Review of Bob the Gambler
