It was directed by Jacques Becker and stars Jean Gabin, with René Dary, Paul Frankeur, Lino Ventura, Jeanne Moreau, Dora Doll, and Marilyn Buferd.

He reveals he is sick of the criminal lifestyle and plans to retire with the money from the airport heist, and tells Riton to leave Josy to the younger Angelo.

Director Jacques Becker read the novel Touchez pas au grisbi by Albert Simonin in 1953,[4] and felt that it would be interesting subject for film-goers.

Becker was then seeking to be back in favour with cinema audiences and thus with producers after the lack of commercial success of his two most recent films.

[5] Touchez pas au grisbi is Becker's only gangster film, where he took the genre forward by combining "a pensive meditation on age, friendship, and lost opportunities" with traditional elements "double-crossings, violence, kidnappings, gun battles", and was influential on French police dramas in the future with its "mood of ironic, existential fatalism".

Becker adds to this an attention to "everyday rituals" particularly in a scene where they take wine and pâté on toast at a secret apartment.

Despite his admiration for Gabin - especially in Les Bas-fonds and La Grande Illusion, Becker was at first reluctant to cast him since he represented the past of French cinema and had yet to rediscover his élan in the post-war era after returning from the United States.

[4] The principal crew were formed of individuals whom Becker knew well; Jean d’Eaubonne for décors, Pierre Montazel, Colette Crochot on the script and Marguerite Renoir for editing.

To forestall this Wiener worked overnight, and was convinced that he should use a harmonica as the main instrument, having recently been impressed by the playing of a Jean Wetzel.

The song 'The Touch/Le Grisbi' became the biggest money-spinner of Wiener's career and soon began an existence outside the film, in recordings by among others Richard Hayman, The Commanders, Harry James, Sy Oliver, Ted Heath, Larry Adler, Stanley Black and Betty Johnson.

[1] Touchez pas au grisbi gave Becker his first big box-office success since Goupi mains rouges of 1943.