A true time capsule of Paris 1956: Bob le Flambeur

Jean-Pierre Melville's 1956 noirish French gangster movie, "Bob le Flambeur" (Bob the Gambler - you won't find the word in your Larousse) is a sharp, well-narrated, well-paced movie that doesn't feel dated at all. Bob (does the name sound exotic to the French?) is an elderly, distinguished looking sharpie who makes his living through gambling in the Montmarte/Pigalle neighborhoods; after string a bad luck he gets the idea to rob the vault in a casino (Deauville), assembles a team, but one of the weak links blabs to his girlfriend, she blabs or boasts to a guys she's carrying on with on the side, he's a mug who owes a favor to the police, he squeals, but the cops are also in with Bob - the whole plot clicks together like a fine piece of machinery. Few people have seen this movie I suspect, though it's a natural for a contemporary remake - maybe that's already been done, in fact, in one version or another, though I think an action-filled, glossy color remake would spoil all the charm, as part of the pleasure of watching Bob the Flambeur is the period locale, Paris in 56 still impoverished from the war, very few cars - Bob drives a huge Plymouth, a real stylist - and the gorgeous scenes at night all evidently shot on location on the streets of Paris with the trashy nightclubs and bars of the Pigalle, and even some background music from some of the jazz bands who must have been playing the clubs at the time: a true time capsule, one of the great pleasures that film can still provide.