Bob le Flambeur

Bob le Flambeur (1956) is Jean-Pierre Melville's French noir crime film — watch it online on iFILM. Roger Duchesne plays Bob Montagne, a retired gangster who drifts through Montmartre on borrowed goodwill: the locals respect him, the police inspector Ledru tolerates him, and the roulette wheel is the one thing in his life he still trusts completely.

When the money runs dry, Bob plans a heist at the Deauville casino during Grand Prix weekend — the vaults are flush, the staff are stretched. He pulls a crew together and rehearses the job to the last detail. What he doesn't know is that someone in his circle is already talking to Ledru. Melville builds the tension not around whether the robbery works, but around what kind of man Bob turns out to be when the pressure lands.

The film is widely credited as a template for the French New Wave — Godard watched it repeatedly before writing his first scripts. Stream Bob le Flambeur (1956) online on iFILM.