Razzia sur la Chnouf (1955)

After several years away from his native country that ended on a stint in the USA that seems to have left him with a reputation as an effective and brutal rationalizer of gangland activity, French gangster Henri Ferré (Jean Gabin), known as “Le Nantais” because French movie gangster nicknames are desperately pedestrian, has been called home to clean up the heroin running operation of one Paul Lisky (Marcel Dalio). Apparently, Lisky bumped off Henri’s predecessor because he got “too soft”, which sums up Lisky’s leadership style quite nicely. So, after having been set up with a nightclub to run as a front, Henri is supposed to tighten up Lisky’s operation, and send Lisky’s favourite killers (Lino Ventura and Albert Rémy) for anyone who doesn’t perform or wants out of the business.

Curiously enough, bloodthirsty, Henri seems to be a rather nice guy, preferring to warn off people from doing suicidal shit, being nice to junkies, and really running things with a much softer touch than his boss believes he does. He’s actually pretty nice for a brutal gangster, is what I’m saying. So it’s not a complete surprise that he quickly romances the youngest woman in his club. Plus, he’s Jean Gabin and therefore has the animal magnetism of a Tom Atkins towards younger women. Of course, there’s still quite a bit of trouble coming Henri’s way.

Henri Decoin’s Razzia sur la Chnouf is a rather interesting example of mid-50s French gangster films. It mostly lacks the highly melodramatic streak of quite a few of its peers I’ve seen, instead going about its tale of crime very much like Jean Gabin goes about acting: unfussy, focussed, with an emphasis on the telling detail instead of the telling mugging. It gives the impression of a film that knows what it is doing and why, and so isn’t going to need to get shrill about it.

Of course, it is also a film that shows a meticulous interest in portraying a mid-50s French drug milieu whose authenticity at least this viewer in 2019 can’t help but doubt, giving the film a peculiarly fairy-tale like air that fits strangely with its clear interest in the sort of detail work you’ll usually find in a police procedural. These elements of the film for the most part don’t feel dated, exactly, but rather as if they were never true in the first place, even though the film’s whole impetus insists they were. Which mostly works fine if you’re willing to just go with it, and enjoy the film’s inventiveness more than its naturalism despite all gestures it makes towards the latter. There is a painfully racist scene in a black marijuana establishment, though, that also seems to suggest that grass is worse than the heroin Henri helps sell, which really seems to be a sign of the times this was made in, and suggests a dubious knowledge of actual drugs from the filmmakers.

On the technical side, the film is often rather wonderful. Decoin not only shows that great ability to focus on telling details, he mostly gets his actors – apart from Lila Kedrova as a very melodramatic junkie the film treats with exasperation and compassion in about the same amounts - to eschew 50s French BIG acting in favour of Gabin-style thoughtful focus. There are also quite a few moments of simply excellent filmmaking on display, be it in form of many a moody shot of Parisian streets by night or Decoin’s ability to say quite a bit about his characters and the way they relate to one another simply by showing how they move through the spaces the camera creates. There’s a bit of a noir influence there, and much of Decoin’s approach to character and staging suggests a kindred sensibility to Jean-Pierre Melville’s work, just used with less abandon (which is an admittedly strange word for Melville’s style).


The only thing, apart from the racist scene, that’s going to be a bit strange for a viewer in 2019, is the film’s plot twist, that seemed preposterously obvious from very early on to me. That might have something to do with the movie going public in the mid-50s being a bit slow on the uptake (doubtful), or with them not being inundated with the particular trope about police work the film uses, or the film just not actually fooling its contemporary audience at all – who knows? Razzia sur la Chnouf is still a worthwhile watch, particularly if you think that very melodramatic acting was a part of all French genre films of the 50s.