This movie is extremely polished and well-made. It stacks up very well to even the best American film noir movies and is about the best French gangster film I have seen. Apart from THE KILLERS, DOA and possibly KISS OF DEATH, it's with very few equals----except for THE KILLING and RIFIFI. THE KILLING has a suspiciously similar plot and it came out a year AFTER BOB LE FLAMBEURe could be said for RIFIFI--so I assume that these plots were "heisted" or it was simply a remake. Yes, there are a few differences, but the basic plot line is pretty much intact. Though, because this was a French film, a few gratuitous boobs were tossed into the melange that you won't see in THE KILLING and only see briefly in RIFIFI. You certainly would NOT have seen that in Hollywood in 1955! I think another reason I liked the film so much was also due to when it was made. Had it been made just a few years later (when the French New-Wave movement began in the later 50s),the artistic touches and excellent camera work would have been abandoned in favor of Godard's or Truffaut's style (as seen in movies such as Breathless and Shoot the Piano Player). I, for one, prefer the older and more artistic style of noir.

Bob, a middle-aged gambler and ex-con living in the Montmartre district of Paris, experiences a run of bad luck that leaves him nearly broke. Bob is a gentleman with scruples, well liked in the demi-monde community. He has unsuccessfully tried to rob a bank in the past, and has spent time in prison.

Vincent Canby, writing in 1981, noted "Melville's affection for American gangster movies may have never been as engagingly and wittily demonstrated as in Bob le Flambeur, which was only the director's fourth film, made before he had access to the bigger budgets and the bigger stars of his later pictures." "Bob le flambeur" influenced the two versions of the American film Ocean's Eleven (1960 and 2001) as well as Paul Thomas Anderson's "Hard Eight", and was remade by Neil Jordan as "The Good Thief" in 2002. What I love about this is how the genre comes full circle. With the western, it had to go to Italy before it come back and be reborn in the United States. Apparently for the gangster film, it had to detour through France.

Seemingly, American studios could not be inspired by John Ford or William Wellman until their work was properly recognized by some European counterparts in the 1950s and 1960s. But that is not surprising.

Apparently this film is not very known for cinema goers and stuff, I certainly only heard of it when I saw it listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so I had to see if it was one that may deserve more recognition. Basically Robert 'Bob' Montagné (Roger Duchesne) is an old well dressed gangster who has a nice apartment, two-toned convertible coupe and he respects the police, but his big problems is a compulsive love for gambling. On a losing streak he is considering a last job in the Montmartre district of Paris, he overhears that the Deauville Casino holds unimaginable quantities of money and is vulnerable during morning hours. Bob develops the scheme to steal the fortune, and he brings in a safe cracker and a few other underworld characters to help out, and at the same time the middle aged ex-con becomes involved with young Anne (Isabelle Corey),who has no place to live and stays with any man who will have her. Bob's friend and partner in crime Paolo (Daniel Cauchy) trusts the young woman when they spend some time together, he even tells her the robbery plan, and she betrays the gang on the night the heist is planned, unaware it was meant to be secret, and she tells pimp turned informant Marc (Gérard Buhr). Marc was going to tip off Inspector Ledru (Guy Decomble),who Bob saved the life of, about the robbery, but he is killed by Paulo before giving away the big details, and the police officer warns the gangster off the job. The man inside the casino, Jean the croupier (Claude Cerval),has also tipped off the police, and to occupy himself before any heist Bob gambles a winning streak inside the casino. He has ironically got a large enough fortune with his winnings, and when his friends arrive, as well as the police, there is a shoot out, where Paulo is shot, and he is finally arrested. Bob was able to stash his hundreds of chips inside Ledru's car, and he remarks the possibility he will get off lightly and be able to sue the police for damages, while lonely Anne waits for him at his place. Also starring André Garet as Roger, Howard Vernon as McKimmie and Colette Fleury as Suzanne. Duchesne gives a good performance as the gloomy and addictive risky gangster with a good poker face and all the moves, I did not notice many funny moments, but the story that is similar to Ocean's Eleven was quite good entertainment, and the gambling scenes are interesting too, a watchable crime comedy drama. Vey good!