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Giant Criterion box sets like these are implicitly a mixed bag. I don’t mean that the qualities of the films are in question; you’d struggle to find a more varied and intriguing mix of internationally-acclaimed films than this one. But part of the delicacy of Criterion releases are bonus features, and sets like 10 Years of Rialto Pictures and its Essential Art House set from a few years ago end up abandoning the comprehensive double-disc editions of films for sleek, simple, movie- only versions.

With that in mind, big, beautiful box sets like this one end up being far more for newcomers than already-versed cinephiles. Only one of these ten films hasn’t been previously released by Criterion on DVD, Murderous Maids. So it’s without reservation that this writer recommends the individual releases of all the pictures in this set. Yet it’s hard to hold any grudges when the makeup of this 10 Years of Rialto Pictures edition is so wonderfully multifaceted.

We start with Army of Shadows, Jean-Pierre Melville’s marvelously intriguing French Resistance drama. Lino Ventura plays Philippe, a civil engineer who is also a high ranking member of the Resistance. When we meet him, he’s been betrayed and is on his way to a POW camp. Eventually he escapes and rejoins his team, which includes Jean Francois (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and Mathilde (Simone Signoret), considered the most brilliant of all the agents. While all this has the makings of a spy thriller, Melville takes the opposite tack. After a brief submarine trip to London, Philippe parachutes back into France. Had this been a typical spy movie, Philippe would be fighting off a gaggle of Nazis. Later in the film, Philippe and a coterie of Resistance fighters face a hail of machinegun fire. Had this been a Bourne film, the excitement would have been unbearable. But the way Melville plays it, the tension is unbearable, not the excitement. There’s nothing that smacks of superspy exploits. When Philippe’s betrayer is executed, there is nothing joyous about it. In fact, they have to figure out how to kill him because nobody wants to use his gun; that will make too much noise.

The movie is about spies and resistance and war, but it’s also about people compelled to methodical acts of bravery to save their country even though there’s no chance of recognition from the outside world. They’re not trying to avoid death. In a sense, they’re already dead, delaying the inevitable long enough to prove to God that Man isn’t a lost cause.

Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar is a far more cerebral, introspective affair, yet it’s still regarded as one of the grandest French-language films ever made. Bresson, with his feather-light directorial touch, wants to paint the miraculous tendencies of everyday life in such a stripped-down fashion that viewers have no choice but to see the glory in the minutiae of the status quo existence of his chracters.
 
The film has many facets - the booklet that accompanies this superb Criterion Collection release addresses the Catholic references in the film - but Bresson refuses to make anything simple for his audience. As Balthazar rambles through its first hour, those unfamiliar with Bresson's breezy storytelling style may scratch their heads in frustration, wondering where the hell this thing is going.

What's liberating about Au Hasard Balthazar structurally is that it meanders through its narrative not with scenes, but with juxtaposing images and ideas posing as scenes. We see a sick girl crying in her bed; then we cut suddenly and see her a few minutes later, deader than a doornail. We see young lovers whispering each others' names with romantic abandon, but we never see them interact in any kind of didactic fashion.

Bresson gives the impression with Au Hasard Balthazar that the dialogue and pretense of normal life is a given. Lovers will talk about their love, then fight about it, then make up afterward (boring), so there's no reason to showcase it. It's atypical filmmaking, so those who prefer their viewing experiences with an appropriate amount of hearts, ribbons, and flowers will find keeping up with Au Hasard Balthazar too heady of a task. More adventurous cinephiles just might agree with Jean-Luc Godard, who called Balthazar “the world in an hour and a half.”

Then we come to Band of Outsiders. On its most basic level, the film is about a heist involving two extremely petty criminals: Franz (a terrific Sami Frey) and Arthur (Claude Brasseur). In their English class they meet Odile (Anna Karina, who was Godard's wife at the time), a delicious number with her plaid skirt and schoolgirl charm. At first, Odile falls for Arthur, the slicker, more sinister of the two. He discovers that Odile lives with her mother and a wealthy border, who has a rather large sum of cash in his room. The threesome decides to break into the house, steal the money, and run away forever. Of course, since this is a Godard film, the characters, the plot, and the ultimate outcome are not entirely the point. It's the spaces between the characters, the plot, and the ultimate outcome where Godard lives.

As usual, all the experimental, fourth wall nuggets you expect from Jean- Luc Godard are here. The great director himself narrates the film, including an offer to sum up the plot "for latecomers arriving now." At another point, Franz, Arthur, and Odile sit in a cafe and wonder what would happen if no one talked for one minute. Subsequently, not only do the three characters stay quiet, but Godard also kills the ambient audio, meaning there is zero sound of any kind for about 40 seconds. There is also a moment where our heroes pass under a sign that reads "Nouvelle Vague," which is French for New Wave.

But really, the most vivid character in the film is Paris itself. Raoul Coutard's black and white cinematography is cold and otherworldly. As if our anti-heroes live in a Paris just parallel to the real one, but constructed so Godard can say his peace about the state of cinema and his place in it. Band of Outsiders deserves to remembered, cherished and imitated.

Billy Liar, one of the more celebrated works from director John Schlesinger, is an entertaining comedy about the life of Billy Fisher (the inimitable Tom Courtenay), a young lad overwhelmed by dreams of becoming something, even if he doesn't exactly know what that is. As a defense against failure, he has become a compulsive liar and a daydreamer, longing to break out from his dreary suburban lifestyle. Fisher becomes more and more entangled in a web of lies. He lies to his parents about his job, he lies to his boss about future employment and missing funds, and he lies to two girlfriends, Rita (Gwendolyn Watts) and Barbara (Helen Fraser), all the while longing for Liz (Julie Christie), who represents the freedom he pines for.

While the main story is set in the real world that is Billy's dreary reality, he is frequently transported to the magical realms within in his own mind. As Fisher attempts to maintain his web of lies, the line between the reality and fantasy becomes more fragile, resulting in more elaborate lies, which will eventually destroy what little self-esteem Billy originally had. This would be a hilarious comedy if Fisher were not such a tragic character, so ultimately the charms in Billy Liar are bittersweet indeed.

We then encounter the breezy, Mensa-smart narrative circus of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, one of master director Luis Bunuel’s finest and most symbolically dense pictures. The set up is Beckett-like in scope (a group of six rich folks sit down for dinner, but never eat), but the material that Bunuel is able to mine from their labyrinthine conversations has yet to be matched in modern cinema. The film may lack the epic, ferris-wheel fireworks of the director’s more iconic works (Un Chien Andalou, L’age d’Or), but The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is arguably the grandest achievement in the latter part of the filmmaker’s career. It’s cheeky, irreverent, questioning, deliciously satiric, and best of all, one is always rewarded with something new every time it’s viewed.

Mafioso is Italian director Alberto Lattuada’s finest hour (in addition to his collaboration with Federico Fellini on Variety Lights). It’s the kind of complicated culture study that went underappreciated at the time of its release yet maintains a sturdy level of insight and verisimilitude in hindsight. The concept of the film is simple. Milanese car factory worker Antonio Badalamenti (Alberto Sordi) decides to take his family on a visit to his homeland of Sicily in an attempt to return to his roots and give his children a connection with a heritage sorely lacking in an industrial society. But as funny as the film is, things are not all smooth in the Badalamenti family’s Sicilian countryside. The traditionalist old-timers don’t take kindly to the sort of city folk that their distant relative have become, and Badalamenti isn’t quite ready to accept that there are certain aspects to the “family business” that he isn’t quite ready to share with his wife and kids (hence the title).

Yet despite these serious themes, Mafioso is neither heavy-handed nor one-note. What Lattuada Badalamenti does so well with his material is counterpoint everything with contrasting moods and dialogue. One could make the argument that this is a mafia comedy (of sorts) in that it attempts to undermine the severity of the proto-mafia portrayed with a humorous undercurrent. Lattuada seems to be insisting that his characters need not fear the violent business at their extended family’s core, but rather recognize its boundaries and implications so they can figure out how to exist in a world alongside it.

And as Badalamenti inevitably gets entwined with some “businessmen” in Sicily, the film takes its time in the third act to really address this. Badalamenti is forced to see firsthand just what certain members of his family do. And Lattuada pours subversive ideas onto his viewers about how the mafia will always be a part of Italian history, though the plight of mid-century Italian modernists was to marginalize the entity as much as possible.

I’m sure I’m not doing justice to the film’s multiple thematic layers, so I suppose I should keep it simple and just say that while Mafioso may not be a classic in every sense of the word, it’s far nobler for what it undertakes narratively than what it accomplishes on film. The wild and dynamic ideas portrayed within its semi-comic rhetoric showcase a filmmaker working at the height of his powers.

So what if Lattuada will be more widely known as the guy who gave Fellini his first job? As long as cinephiles have Mafioso to fall back on, he’ll still be recognized as a driving force of Italian cinema in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Murderous Maids (a new addition to the Criterion pantheon) does not have the sheen of age and has not earned as much appreciation as the other films in this set. It was made in 2000 and is the most recently- released movie of the group. But it nevertheless is a film that has a slick narrative and is scandalously entertaining. The movie follows Christine (Sylvie Testud), an out-of-control young girl in a Catholic school, who is constantly getting fired because of her aggressive, off-putting sensibilities. It seems that all she wants to do is work alongside her sister, Lea (Julie-Marie Parmentier), a woman Christine loves in more ways than one.

In fact, when the two get work from a nasty old coot named Madame Lincelan (Dominique Labourier), the nosy matron intrudes on the sisters as they are exploring an incestuous side of their relationship (quel scandal!) and the merde hits the fan. Based on a real-life account of the murdering Papin sisters, Murderous Maids is far more graphic and sexually-charged than other pictures in this box set, but its storytelling techniques are appropriately old-fashioned. Director Jean-Pierre Denis doesn’t frame the film as lesbian soft-core porn, but instead maintains a stoic, steady directorial hand as his story careens toward an explosive close. It’s a helluva ride.

Rififi is one of the best bank heist movies ever made, and one of director Jules Dassin’s greatest achievements. Tony le Stephanois (Jean Servais) gets out of the big house after having served ten years to protect the younger Jo. Tony is old and not in the greatest health. To add to his problems, he’s poor, a situation exacerbated by his lousy luck at the poker table. Jo informs his elder friend about an opportunity to do a "window job" at a local bank, but Tony wants no part of it; he has no desire to return to prison. But then Tony discovers that his old girlfriend, who betrayed him, is in town, so he sets off to find her. And find her he does; the encounter leaves her scarred in more ways than one. The confrontation leaves Tony with renewed vigor. Not content with the plans Jo had previously laid out, Tony ambitiously informs his confidants that he want to go after a bigger fish: the bank's safe.

It might be impossible to fully appreciate this film today due to the numerous copycats and derivatives that followed in its wake. Even Scorsese might owe something to this film, since his Goodfellas employed a very similar plot device (if you’ve seen both films you’ll know exactly what I mean). And not to be forgotten are all the bank heist films that came after this seminal bank heist film. Rififi demonstrates that perfection in execution is far less important than excellence in planning.

The Third Man’s place in film history is assured. It has graced more top 10 and top 100 lists than this review has space to list. Even more compelling than critical accolades is the fact that it is, in the end, an exceptional film, highlighted by some of British cinema's most memorable moments.

In this acclaimed picture, Oscar-winning director Carol Reed has crafted a wonderfully visual film that uses cant angles and gorgeous black and white cinematography to capture stark images of a Vienna in ruins, tragically beautiful in the wake of the Second World War. Beyond that, any plot summary would ruin some of the film's narrative twists and turns that transform the movie’s main characters into flesh and blood people that we can't help but identify with. These are real characters in a real setting, and the actors, especially Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles, give us finely honed performances that frequently make us forget that these are only characters.

There are moments that you'll never forget: Welles' first appearance in a Victorian doorway; the cuckoo clock speech on the midway; and, the climactic chase through the sewers beneath the city. The Third Man is an immensely powerful film that continues to dazzle modern audiences.

Jacques Becker's underappreciated (at least in the United States) Touchez Pas au Grisbi (loosely translated as "Hands Off the Loot") is a crime picture of massive caliber. It succeeds not just in expressing its genre with finesse and integrity, but in presenting a wonderfully evocative crime drama that is both wildly enjoyable and oddly atypical.

The film starts slowly, with Max (Jean Gabin) being his usual cool self, talking about whether or not to go home with his new dame, cryptically patting himself on the back for a huge heist he pulled off expertly with his pal Riton. He smokes multiple cigarettes, tosses in a few great lines of dialogue, and just kind of looks the part. Even though it's great, we've been here before.

But once Touchez Pas au Grisbi hits the 30-minute mark, all bets are off. I don't mean to trivialize the movie, but it becomes a veritable Sopranos precursor. Every critic waxed eloquent about how David Chase's popular HBO series took the mythos and glamour of mob movie culture and turned it into a soap opera of sorts. We all heralded the way it turned gutter hoodlums into regular ol' moms and dads who have to deal with their kids' acne, school plays, and everyday grocery shopping between killing sprees.

Touchez Pas au Grisbi accomplishes a similar sort of humanization with its characters. One of the film's greatest and most engaging emotional scene occurs when Max takes Riton to a safe house. "This apartment is quieter than yours," Riton exclaims upon entering, and we get a prolonged scene of the two men dressing down for bed. Becker takes his time letting us watch Gabin take his suit coat off, place his revolver on the countertop, brush his teeth, wash his face, and show Riton where the towels are. In this seemingly tangential sequence, Becker all but lifts back the smoky-haze facade of the grisly mob and does what The Sopranos did week after week; it shows us that mobsters are not all that different from ourselves. The demons of violence reside in all of us.
 
But don't be mislead; Touchez Pas au Grisbi is no touchy-feely walk in the park. For every eloquently subdued character moment, we get raucously aggressive acts of violence. There's a great scene in which Gabin slaps a skinny member of his enemy's camp over and over. There’s a stellar climactic car-based stand-off. And there’s a wonderful sense of overall dread that is readily apparent but doesn't entirely seep in until the film meanders toward its close.

Touches Pas au Grisbi is a sentimental, sensitive fever dream of a mob movie, a paint-by-numbers genre piece that subverts the intentions and iconography of its characters as much as it plays by the rules. It's a marvel.

And it’s a fine way to round out this box set. If you feel compelled to pick up this set because you have none of these titles on your shelf, know this: you’ll probably end up double-dipping to get more comprehensive editions of the film on DVD (and The Third Man is slated for a Blu-ray release this fall, to boot).

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Each transfer varies in quality a bit, but for the most part, the movies look as good as one could hope. If you base your judgment of Army of Shadows’ 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer on the restoration demonstration, then there’s only one conclusion. Criterion did a great job on the gnarly scratches and tears in the print. Au Hasard Balthazar also looks delicious on its 1.66:1 transfer. The effects of age are apparent (there's a bit of noticeable strobing and there are visible cuts and bruises on the transfer print). But black levels and monochromatic contrast are exceptionally strong.

Band of Outsiders is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1, derived from a new high definition transfer created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35 mm duplicate negative. Results are unbelievable. Billy Liar is given a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer that showcases faded black levels and so-so contrast, although it’s on par with most of the other black and white DVD presentations of films from this time period. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie also has a bit of a compromised presentation (excessive grain), but it’s not noticeable enough to ruin a newcomer’s viewing of the film.

Criterion does a noble job giving Mafioso an appropriate 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, although the film’s presentation on this disc definitely reveals its age. Black levels are deep and consistent, and contrast is dynamic. I’m positive that Criterion has done some work to restore the print to some degree, but Mafioso only looks pretty good here. Murderous Maids, on the other hand, looks just fine, mostly because it’s comparatively new and also because it has a wonderful color palette that is utilized exquisitely (deeply-textured costumes literally pop off the screen).

The video quality of Rififi is also surprisingly good. While sharpness could be better and there is some slight grain present, the images are very clean with only a few tiny specks apparent. And The Third Man received a transfer upgrade from Criterion last year, and the results are exceptional (it comes as little surprise that this will be one of the company’s debut high definition titles). And finally, the 1.33:1 transfer of Touchez Pas au Grisbi looks excellent. Elements of it’s half century age are still apparent; there are dots and scratches on the transfer print, but there was much less haze on this transfer than I was expecting. Sharpness is strong, black levels are deep and consistent, and the film's contrast is presented well. It may not be a technological marvel, but it sure looks like a million bucks to me.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The audio presentations adhere to Criterion’s long practice of presenting films as they originally sounded. All the films are presented in mono, with the exception of Murderous Maids, which is in simple stereo. But Criterion cleaned up the audio as best it could, leaving us with some unavoidably tinny sounds. These films sound like they did upon their initial release, for better and for worse.

English subtitles are included on all films.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

This is where this set falters; only a handful of trailers are included. The individual DVD editions are chock-full of goodies (some of them even come with an entire bonus disc full of material), but in this collection, they’re pretty much movie-only.

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

There are no DVD-ROM features on these DVDs.