Some reasons to watch Becker's Casque d'Or

Jacques Becker's 1952 gangster drama, Casque d'Or (Golden Helmet/Headpiece - a reference to Signoret's hair-do?), shows its age in some ways - doesn't have anywhere near the pace, the morbid overtones, the malignancy, or the stark violence that we have come to expect, and to accept, in contemporary gangster-crime films and TV series - but it has a tightly knit plot, set in about the 1890s and centered on 3 rival suitors for a beautiful "moll" (Simone Signoret). The opening sequence - when a group of the gangsters and their "girls" row upstream to an outdoor dance pavilion is a classic 15 minutes of film, culminating in a terrific moment when a gang member and an outsider - whom SS has been eyeing and flirting w/ - go face to face. In fact, some of the best scenes throughout the film are the exteriors, which Becker uses really well to create moods of menace as well as a brief pastoral retreat for the 2 lovers. Becker is great at creating a mood of menace - including the great knife-fight sequence, the visit to Manda while he's carving up wood in a carpenter's workshop, the final sequence (won't give it away) when SS and one of the gangsters rent a room on the top floor of a cheap hotel. Sure, the gangsters at times look and act like comic miscreants - something like the mobsters in Some Like It Hot - but the story line works (a rarity in crime drama, where so often you feel like the plot has been spun out of improbabilities and coincidences), the tension is maintained throughout, and there are a # of powerful and beautiful sequences. Despite the period setting and occasional drollery, the film is a strong example of 1950s crime drama - rising above the cliches of the genre and one of the few crime films to center in a female protagonist.