Noirsville Clip of the Week

 La grosse caisse aka The Big Swag (1965) French Black Comedy Noir

Opening V.O [English subs]. For 10 years head ticket puncher Felix Pignol at station la Rapée saw the money train arrive at 0:49 AM. It was (Sprague-Thomson) motorized carriage 517 with the daily takings of the 300 stations on the way to the treasury of the RAPT with on board 600 million worth of change. The carriage was jokingly called "the Big Swag...."

And it had been transformed into a mobile vault. Three money collectors divided the bills and coin into various steel draws. An easy job. La Rapée was the last station before the treasury of the RAPT that was located in a basement 900 meters further along.

La grosse caisse aka The Big Swag (1965) French Black Comedy Noir

Who woulda thunk it? Here we got basically a precursor to The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974) in La Gross caisse aka The Big Swag. 

Morton Freedgood under the pen name John Godey published Taking of Pelham... in 1973, it was a best seller. Now I can only speculate from things I've garnered by using the google machine. 

Check this out "Le Poinçonneur des Lilas" is a French song written, composed and performed by Serge Gainsbourg, he recorded it in June 1958, This was also Gainsbourg's first big hit. Our main character in the film Louis Bourdin a poinçonneur (a ticket puncher) whistle's it. La grosse caisse could obviously be partly inspired by the song. 

The song is about a bored ticket puncher to whom the passengers pay no regard "There's no sunshine in this Metro station, A strange vacation, To kill the boredom in my vest, I've extracts from Readers Digest." 

La Gross caisse is about Louis a bored "loveable schmoe" poinconneur at the Quai de la Rapée station who is a commissure of pulp fiction detective novels, and magazines which he reads between trains. He's also an aspiring pulp fiction writer himself.  

"...I'm working like a slave Down in this cave."

"I've had enough I've had it with this bullshit Down in this cesspit" 

"The day will come I'm sure When I will get away to something more I'll take a car a plane a train a yacht"

Louis writes what he knows about and that's the Metro. He writes his novel with a homophonic pun in its title "Rapt à la RATP" (rapt means abduction and R.A.P.T stands for Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens or equivalently in English Paris Autonomous Transport Authority). 

Louis writes about a disgruntled R.A.P.T. poinconneur who plans the hijacking of the "money train," which consisted of two Sprague-Thomson tractor motor cars either a T 35 or a T 37.  a RATP robbery. Louis has meticulously logged the details of the nightly passage of the money train timetable, and the number of guards and just how it could be flawlessly hijacked by making it stop at the abandoned Arsenal station and taking it over. Then with the hijack crew in place, diverting the money train after its last collection stop at Quai de la Rapée station.

Once it leaves Quai de la Rapée it comes to a switch to a spur line which went to a platform for what was called The Finance line which was another separate single narrow-gauge track. The "finances" were unloaded at the platform to this narrow gauge train on "finance track." It's entrance was protected by an armored door. Beyond the door the narrow gauge train ran to the safes located in the cellars of the R.A.P.T. administration building on Quai de la Rapée.

Directed by Alex Joffé (Riff Raff Girls, Fortunat)

Story by Renée Asseo (Joffé's wife) , Luc Charpentier, Geno Gil, and Alex Joffé. Screenplay by Alex Joffé with additional dialogue by Pierre Lévy-Corti.

Cinematography by Louis Page (Inspector Maigret), Music by (Jean Marion). 

The film stars Bourvil (La Traversée de Paris, The Longest Day, Le Cercle rouge) as Louis Bourdin alias Louis Le Normand. 

Bourvil as Louis Bourdin

Paul Meurisse as Paul Filippi

Bourvil was a French actor, standup comedian, radio personality, and singer best known for his roles in comedy films playing "gentle and well-meaning characters who were often a bit obtuse or naïve," (wiki) sort of like a French C.C. Baxter played by Jack Lemmon in The Apartment. 

Paul Meurisse (Les Diaboliques, Le Deuxième Souffle, Army of Shadows) as artistic mob mastermind Paul Filippi, Françoise Deldick as Angélique former "Miss Subways," Daniel Ceccaldi (Stolen Kisses, That Man From Rio) as station master Felix Pignol, Henri Piégay as Luc, and .

Daniel Ceccaldi as Felix Pignol and Françoise Deldick as Angélique 

Story

The film Starts with the credits running over a Paris Metro system map where station marker lights are sequentially lighting up along one of the lines. 

Bastille Station lights up and, this cuts to the Bastille station agent walking on a platform towards a train. He's carrying a white canvas bag, Which he hands off to the train. 

We cut to the interior of the car, and two metro workers. One is counting cash. The other is loading packets of bills into draws. The train pulls out of the station and we cut again to the interior and see a third metro worker watching the two men handling the cash.  

Cut to the train passing through a strange "ghost" station, Arsenal, with cars parked on its platforms. It was abandoned and used for publicity / advertising. In the film it is has a display of Simca cars parked on the platform. 

The Money Train's next stop is Quai de la Rapée station where the station master with two armed guards wait for the train to pull to a stop. The "Chef de station" (station master) chit chats about a game as he hands over his bag of cash. 

A typical above ground metro station had usually 5 employees, the station master, 2 Ticket Punchers (Poinçonneurs), and  1–2 Ticket Agents (Guichetiers) to sell tickets and provide change.

Here we get a V.O. telling us that 

V.O.: For 10 years head ticket puncher Felix Pignol at station la Rapée saw the money train arrive at 0:49 AM. It was (Sprague-Thomson) motorized carriage 517 with the daily takings of the 300 stations on the way to the treasury of the RAPT with on board 600 million worth of change. The carriage was jokingly called "the Big Swag...."

The motorized carriage pulls up to the switch at Dubon, then heads into the spur to the platform of the narrow gauge line to RAPT headquarters.

V.O.: And it had been transformed into a mobile vault. Three money collectors divided the bills and coin into various steel draws. An easy job. La Rapée was the last station before the treasury of the RAPT that was located in a basement 900 meters further along.

A metro employee throws the switch. The money train enters the siding and drops down towards the "finance line" platform.

As soon as the money train passes the switchman throws the switch back to the mail line, and then walks down the spur to the finance platform.

We cut back to a reverse shot of Dubon at the spur switch, and watch as a 4 carriage Sprague-Thompson metro train passes the turnout.

Then we continue our view as it heads out of the tunnel and up the grade on the elevated Viaduc d'Austerlitz and over the Seine to the Austerlitz station. The Viaduc d'Austerlitz is sort of the Paris equivalent of NYC's Hell Gate Bridge. 

This sequence is reversed and its early morning and we watch as the last "Petite Loge" (Small Cab) Motrices train with a single top headlight coming across the Seine from Austerlitz station crosses the bridge and eventually pulls into la Rapée. 

La Rapée

Its the last train of the night and end of shift. the train departs. We watch as poinçonneurs Angélique "Miss Subways" and Louis get ready to split. Angélique goes out of her booth and jumps on a coin operated weight machine. 

In the weigh machine mirror she checks her makeup. Louis hops around on the opposite platform like he's not dressed for the cold. 

Louis: Angélique, a drink? My treat.

Angélique: I can't tonight.

Louis: Then you won't know how it ended. The ending will be extremely tense. Hadley Chase* will get a big fight. 

 (*René Lodge Brabazon Raymond,  known by his pen name James Hadley Chase, was an English author of crime fiction. He is one of the best known thriller writers of all time.) 

Angélique: Tell me tomorrow Mr. Bourdin.

Louis: Bye beautiful.   

Louis looks at his watch and heads down stairs. There he tries to get Felix Pignol to have a drink, he also wants to read him some of his latest novel. Felix keeps making excuses as he locks up the station for the night.

We thencut to a large bookshelf with a huge pulp paperback library, next to an aquarium with goldfish. Sitting at a desk Louis is putting the finishing touches to his novel. 

Louis says aloud "A good... catch!" He then prints FIN the END. It was six months of work and 325 pages. On the cover under his title he writes Roman Policer, and then starts to write Louis Bourdin, but crosses it out and comes up with a nom de plume le Normand. 

Here we get a series of humorous interludes about Louis' finished manuscript. Conversations  between Angélique and Louis, Louis and Felix and then Louis and a receptionist at The Series Somber MRS publishing house. Louis is feeling full of himself and its visually spoofed with him levitating in his booth. 

levitating

All the RAPT employees begin to kid him about being an author. We next get a sequence at Louis' apartment. He gets a knock on his door its a classified mail delivery. Its his novel with a rejection letter telling him its not realistic. Its repeated with various juxtapositions with more rejections and more kidding by his fellow workers. 

On the last rejection, he corrals the postman by refusing to hand him his signed receipt, and recites to him his story. When he reaches the end. Louis asks him if its unrealistic. The postman replies that it comes across real like a newspaper article. 

When he reaches the end. Louis asks him if its unrealistic. The postman replies that it comes across real like a newspaper article. 

Mailman:  They be very happy with this holdup.

Louis: Publishers?

Mailman:  No, crooks.

We can almost see a lightbulb click on in Louis' head and it starts going Noirsville.

We cut to shots of a prison. Then to the outside of prison gate, by a cafe. Louis is sitting on his bicycle watching the release of prisoners. He's trying to figure out who to approach. The first releasees seem harmless but the last is a giant. He follows the giant into the cafe. 

 He's trying to figure out who to approach. The first releasees seem harmless but the last is a giant. He follows the giant into the cafe.

Here we get another humorous sequence where the giant sits in the back of the cafe and orders everything on the menu except the beans. Louis sits down near him and is just appalled at watching him eat. Basically a excon whose had nothing but prison food for four years.

Louis tries to slip him his robbery plan outline when the giant heads to the restroom. He hides it in the giant's, napkin. It doesn't work because the giants hiped his mouth with his sleaves. . 

Eventually up at the bar he slips the envelope with the plan in the giants jacket pocket, but once he is successful with that task, he overhears a toast to Paul Filippi a true criminal mastermind who is being released tomorrow. 

The giant adds that compared to Filippi we are all amateurs.

Change in plan. 

Louis then tries to pick the giant's pocket to retrieve the plan but the giant catches him with his hand in his pocket and kicks him out of the cafe. 

The next day Louis is in the France Soir newspaper morgue flipping through back issues  until he finds the story of Filippi being not prosecuted and scheduled for release. 

The next say Louis is back with his bike at the cafe across the street from the prison. He watches as Paul Filippi is released and met by his associates in a a 1959 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. Filippi gets in and they take off followed by Louis on his VélSolex motorized bicycle. 

Once Paul notices Louis' tail he asks his driver to see if he can ditch him. The Caddy eventually pulls up to Bowling de Paris fancy schmancy bowling alley. But they did not shake Louis who buzzes by. 

In the bowling alley Paul meets with confederates. One tells him about a job to rob the Bank of Africa. Paul tells him another bank, its too boring and walks off. 

Paul heads down to one of the alleys and is about to bowl when one of his men announces that there's that man again. We see Louis walking around the alley trying to look nonchalant. 

Paul stops. Takes off his jacket, and gives some orders momentarily laying his jacket over the back of a chair. Louis sees this and while Paul is bowling and schmoozing with the people he knows, Louis slips another outline of the plan into Paul Filippi's jacket pocket. 

Louis splits but is confronted by Philippi's men and thrown out. While this is going on Paul finds the envelope and opens it and starts reading. 

Outside the bowling alley when Louis comes to the street, another of Paul Filippi's men tail him in a 1965 Fiat 600 D all the way to La Rapée station.

One night when Louis comes back to his apartment he finds that a light is on inside. When he walks in at first he doesn't see Paul seated in his easy chair reading his manuscript. 

When he does notice Paul, he is startled. Paul has almost finished it. Paul's men join soon them. 

Paul Filippi: Sit down, dear Le Normand. Your detective story is very good. Authors often don't know what they are writing about, but you do. [to one of his men] Get us a drink.

[Back to Louis] If there was an underworld award, you'd get it. But you'll also get one from the Quai des Orfèvres. I drink to the success of your novel, we'll make it a best seller. [Paul and Louis drink their wine]. That mobile vault was very amusing. 600 million in notes, very fascinating. What gave you the idea to write this novel?

Louis: I thought of it myself. I kept seeing the money train. It stops at La Rapée each night. If you'd take the subway more often you'd get around more. 

Paul Filippi: My dear Le Normand you should see the propositions people make me every day. Incredible. Boring banal stuff. But your story's original completely different, even poetic. 

Louis: So you'd publish my book if you were a publisher?

Paul Filippi: You bet. Thank god those idiots didn't publish it. Besides except for the publishers nobody read it, right? Are you sure?

Louis: Very sure.

Paul Filippi: Your description of disloyal employee Pignol is very realistic. Your style reminds me of the best Anglo-Saxon specialists of the genre. Hemingway, did he influence you?

Louis: Nobody helped me, its all mine. I write alone. 

Paul Filippi: One more question, why did you pick me, I'm not the only one, am I?

Louis: You're well known. I've read everything about you in France-Soir. You have guts

Paul Filippi: Thankyou. I'm the only one in Europe who can do what you wrote with style. You understand we checked come things. 

Louis: No problem. I made nothing up. I calculated it all. [Pulls papers with figures out from under a blotter and hands it to Paul. who flips through it]

Paul Filippi: Admirable, you're the Douanier Rosseau of the detective novel, and I'll be you're Apollinaire, I'll make you famous.  [talking to his men] You could learn something from this. Lets see. Do you know how much a hundred franc note weighs? 

[looks at his men who have blank looks on their faces] 8 milligrams. You thought of everything the weight of the bags, the speed, an overlay of the switches. So meticulous. Such professional insight. Only one important matter remains. What percentage do you want?

Louis: I don't want anything. 

Paul Filippi: In the theater world its 12%.. Is that acceptable. 

Louis: Its government money. I won't touch it.

Paul Filippi: Artists don't like to talk about money. Let me be you're impresario, you won't regret it.

Louis tells Paul that he has to get up a 5AM. Paul excuses himself, and takes Louis' notes to prepare. In parting Paul tells Louis that "We don't know each other. We've never met. You'll only hear from us in the papers. Good night."

Paul and his crew split. Louis grabs his forgotten over cooked egg of the stove,before he can get much of it eaten, there's a knock on the door. Paul returns with a question.

Paul Filippi: A question. Pignol, the disgruntled employee, where do we find him?

Louis: What do you want with Pignol. What are you thinking?

Paul Filippi [flipping open the novel]: Page 58. I quote, "When the money collectors saw Pignol, the opened the doors without worrying, the gangsters quickly went inside with their machine guns. If Pignol doesn't cooperate we can't do it. 

Louis: Pignol's a colleague. I used his name he doesn't know anything about it.

It really goes Noirsville when Paul tells Louis that the money collectors know you, as well as Pignol.

The next day Paul shows up at La Rapée station and tells Louis that the station masters key is the same at all 300 stations, and he expects him to be at the rehearsal at Arsenal station tonight with the key. 

Noirsville

Alex Joffé directed a excellent Dark Comedy Noir.Bourvil and Meurisse are engaging and the real locations, the station set, and the model of the Viaduc d'Austerlitz all blend together without distraction. A fun film to watch. 8/10