Harsh, realistic and fast-paced ... Jules Dassin's Night and the City (1950), starring Richard Widmark. Photograph: Kobal
Film director Jules Dassin, who has just died at the age of 96, was the author of masterpieces such as Night and the City and Riffifi. The son of Russian immigrants, he grew up in Harlem. Theatre was to become a passion, one that soon took him to the moving pictures. He directed 11 films between 1941 and 1949 but was soon blacklisted for his leftist sympathies. He settled down in London where he made Night and the City in 1950, but his time in London only lasted a few years as McCarthyism seemed to follow him, even on this side of the Atlantic. He resettled once again, this time in Paris where his Riffifi - or rather in French, Du Riffifi Chez Les Hommes - got him the best director's prize in Cannes in 1955.
Dassin had a particular talent to serve great dramatic parts to great actors such as the late Richard Widmark or Jean Servais. His style behind the camera was elegant and sharp: just like him, a handsome man who, along with his wife, Greek actor Melina Mercouri, charmed everybody he met. Together, they became a powerful and celebrated couple. With Never on Sunday, shot by her husband in 1960, Mercouri rose to international stardom. As strong-headed as she was beautiful, she became a member of Greece's parliament in 1977 and, four years later, minister for culture.
François Truffaut considered Riffifi the best thriller ever, although all of Dassin's harsh, realistic, fast-paced and highly-contrasted black and white films were to grip a whole generation, the audience of the new wave, throughout Europe and America. American paced and European styled, his films carried both force and sophistication, two qualities that are still as blatant today as they were then.
If his filmography reads a little chaotically, put it down to McCarthyism, which clipped his creative wings at a time when he was finding his voice in his mid-30s. Europe and France in particular may have welcomed him as their own, but he always longed to be recognised again as an American director. His son Joe went on to have a long and successful career in France despite an untimely death at the age of 42. If you want to rediscover Jules Dassin's films, perhaps start here.
