Du rififi chez les femmes aka Riff-Raff Girls (1959) Brussels Underworld / Heist Noir

Directed by Alex Joffé (Fortunat, La grosse caisse).

Written by Alex Joffé, José Giovanni, Gabriel Arout, James-Jacques Mage and Auguste Le Breton and  based on his novel of the same name "Du rififi chez les femmes."

Cinematography by Pierre Montazel (Hi-Jack Highway, Touchez pas au grisbi) Music by Louiguy.

The film Stars Nadja Tiller (Rosemary, Lulu, Labyrinth) as Vicky Berlin, Robert Hossein (Rififi chez les hommes, The Wicked Go to Hell, Méfiez-vous, fillettes!, Toi... le venin, Le Monte charge, Highway Pick-Up) as Marcel Point-Bleu, Silvia Monfort as Yoko, Roger Hanin (Les Misérables) as le Bug. 

Nadja Tiller as Vicky Berlin

Robert Hossein as Marcel Pointe-Bleu

Silvia Monfort as Yoko

Roger Hanin as le Bug.

The rest of the cast are Pierre Blanchar (Un Carnet de bal, Crime et châtiment)  as "Le Pirate," Françoise Rosay as Berthe, Jean Gaven as James, Eddie Constantine (Poison Ivy, This Man Is Dangerous, Les femmes s'en balancent, Alphaville)  as Agent Williams, Georges Rigaud as "Le Marquis," Daniel Emilfork (Sophie et le crime, Trans-Europ-Express, Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?, City of Lost Children) as Luigi, Wayne Van Voorhes as Chicago, the Sicilian, André Cellier as the transporter and Denise Clair as Prune.

                                                                                trailer

Story

Vicky "Berlin" runs a floating nightclub on a barge in Brussels, on either the Brussels-Charleroi Canal  or Brussels-Scheldt Maritime Canal. It's called the "K Ration." Her father was a German officer in WWII. She split Berlin after the war and probably made her money with black market US Army "K" rations. Hence the name of her club.

Vicky also has a side hustle hiding a counterfeiting operation in a secret room on the barge. This operation is run by Marcel Pointe-Blue. 

However the counterfeit bills are not destined for public circulation. Marcel has hatched a plan to use the bills as a substitute for an actual money transfer from the Banque de Belgique. He does this by getting hired as a construction worker for a contractor renovating the top floor and roof of the bank building. Their inside man is the bank guard who is responsible for rolling the sack of francs from the bank vault into an elevator up to the loading dock level and depositing into the hands of a waiting armored car crew. 

The plan, is to smuggle the counterfeit bills into the bank inside of marked cement sacks that contain the bills and refilled partially with enough cement to pass scrutiny. 

Re packing a cement bag

Marcel's job is unloading the pallets of cement that are hoisted up to the roof construction site and sorting out the fake bags from the real ones. These he places under boards that block off an existing stairway. 

Once he gets enough to fill a genuine canvas Bank of Belgique money transfer bag he will drop down the elevator shaft to the vault elevator with the counterfeit cash. 

Then just wait to do the switch through the maintenance door in the elevator roof with the bank guard, while he is going his morning money transfer. He has to do this in the short period of time during the ride from the basement vault up to the loading dock at grade level. 

Once Marcel has the real cash he just climbs back up to the roof and hauls the real cash up by rope and pulley. Then all that's left is to wait for dark and drop the money sack down into an alley along side the bank building.

It starts going Noirsville when Yoko and le Bug of the Brussels underworld decide they want control over all the nightclubs in Brussels. First they decide to offer Vicky a price, but she refuses to sell. Then they visit the barge and trash the club. 

This conflict is brought to the attention of the Paris mob run by the big boss Le Pirate who has been staking Marcel's bank money switcheroo plan. Le Pirate gets the parties to agree to a two week pause after which Vicky reluctantly agrees to sell out. 

However unbeknownst to Marcel, Vicky, and Le Pirate, an FBI / Interpol agent is leaning on Le Bug threatening to deport him to the US if he doesn't finger a big drug shipment on the way to Brussels, and Le Bug mistakenly thinks Vicky and Marcel are connected with it.

Noirsville

Eddie Constantine as Agent Williams

 

Daniel Emilfork as as Luigi

This is a variation on a typical heist caper combined with a rival mobster conflict, that has excellent  cinematography, which would be apparent if there was a decent restoration of the film. 

Nadja Tiller, Robert Hossein, Silvia Monfort, Roger Hanin, Pierre Blanchar, Eddie Constantine, and Daniel Emilfork are all good. Worth a watch as is 7/10, probably more with a decent restoration.