Jean Gabin - Everybody's Star

June 28 - July 18, 2002

photo: moontide

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about the series | film descriptions and times

For many people around the world, Jean Gabin was - and still is - French cinema. Gabin was born into a family of entertainers, and he went into the business as a teenager. It wasn't too long before he became Mistinguette's leading man at the Folies-Bergère, and the movies were just a natural progression. By the mid-30s, he was a star. Gabin represented a new kind of screen hero - lifeworn, proudly proletarian and yet naturally graceful, he was dubbed "the tragic hero of contemporary cinema" by the great film critic André Bazin. If he had an equal in American movies, physically and temperamentally, it was Spencer Tracy, but Gabin was even earthier, and there were more ominous undercurrents in his acting. He virtually defined pre-war French cinema in such definitive classics as Renoir's THE LOWER DEPTHS, LA BÊTE HUMAINE and GRAND ILLUSION Marcel Carné's PORT OF SHADOWS and LE JOUR SE LÈVE, Julien Duvivier's PÉPÉ LE MOKO and Jean Grémillon's GUEULE D'AMOUR and Remorques. Gabin went to Hollywood to be with his lover Marlene Dietrich in the 40s, where he made a wonderfully atmospheric movie with Ida Lupino called MOONTIDE. When he returned to France, he quickly re-established his reputation as one of its biggest stars. An older, tougher Gabin straddled many different types of film, from sordid policiers like Razzia sur la Chnouf to comedies like LA TRAVERSÉE DE PARIS to musicals like Renoir's glorious FRENCH CANCAN. This series represents every period from the long career of this magnificent actor and star.

Jean Gabin - Everybody's Star has been generously supported by Patsy and Jeff Tarr and 2wice Magazine.
Additional support has been provided by TV5. For their help and support, thanks to Veronique Godard and The French Cultural Services.

LA GRANDE ILLUSION / GRAND ILLUSION
Jean Renoir, France, 1937; 117m
Jean Renoir made the rounds with the script of his most popular film for three years before Gabin finally got it produced. Based on a true story of World War I, told to the director by a friend, it is not only a moving anti-war statement but also a rich exploration of loyalties and friendships across national boundaries. Erich von Stroheim, Pierre Fresnay, Marcel Dalio and, of course, Gabin do such beautifully textured work that they make most modern acting look stale and fussy by comparison. And this is GRAND ILLUSION looking like you've never seen it before, restored to its original glory in a new print.
Fri June 28: 12:30, 4:45 & 9
Sun June 30: 2:50

LE QUAI DES BRUMES / PORT OF SHADOWS
Marcel Carné, France, 1938; 89m
Movie magic happens when great stars, perfectly cast, utter the sublime dialogue of Jacques Prévert on sets designed by Alexandre Trauner, cradled by a Maurice Jaubert score. Directed by Marcel Carné, Jean Gabin plays an army deserter who dreams of sanctuary but finds himself tragically linked to an orphan girl (Michèle Morgan), a criminal ringleader (Michel Simon), and a suicidal artist (Robert Le Vigan). Gabin made such such downcast, entirely defeated roles completely his own, and the exotic, 18-year-old Morgan, attired in beret and trench coat, made losing one's life for love look positively inviting. One of the high points of French poetic realism. - David Meek
Fri June 28: 2:45 & 7;
Sun June 30: 5:10 & 9

LA BÊTE HUMAINE / THE HUMAN BEAST
Jean Renoir, France, 1938; 100m
"A love story of the railroads," transformed from the Zola novel into a darkly predestined narrative, a beautiful example of "poetic realism" at its height. In this railwayman driven to murder, Jean Gabin perfectly incarnates a flawed soul who falls in love with another man's wife (Simone Simon, ever catlike) and plots with her to kill her inconvenient husband. Some remarkable sequences depicting the mileu in which the protagonist works and plays are shot in a simple, nearly documentary style that catches the rhythms of life on and around trains; and a brutal murder intercut with scenes from workers' festivities is not to be forgotten.
Sat June 29 : 1, 5 and 9
Fri July 5: 3 & 9:15
Sat July 6: 1, 5:10 & 9:15

PÉPÉ LE MOKO
Julien Duvivier, France, 1936; 93m
Black shirt, white tie, two-tone shoes, a stolen jewel winking from his palm - Pépé (Jean Gabin) is the very picture of a gangster-dandy. But this romantic outlaw is confined to the Casbah, refuge for the colorful dregs of Casablanca - and Pépé yearns for Paris and impossibly pure love. Enter Gaby, an elegant Parisienne (Mireille Balin) who soon plays inadvertent femme fatale to her doomed lover, as shady cop Slimane sets the couple up for the fall. Gabin has never been matched in his world-weary idealism: he captured the essence of Casablanca's "Rick" long before Bogart came on the scene.
Sat June 29: 3 & 7
Sun June 30: 1 & 7

THE IMPOSTER
Julien Duvivier, USA, 1944; 92m
Gabin's second film during his short, unhappy stay in Hollywood was this intriguing drama about a criminal who escapes from the hangman and takes on the name of a dead French soldier. Under his new identity, the scoundrel becomes a hero. Gabin's fellow Hollywood exile Julien Duvivier gives THE IMPOSTER some of the moodiness and melancholy atmosphere of his classic poetic realist work from the 30s (including PÉPÉ LE MOKO), aided in no small measure by his star. Music by the thunderously prolific Dimitri Tiomkin.
Mon July 1: 1;
Wed July 3: 1, 5 & 9

MOONTIDE
Archie Mayo and Fritz Lang (uncredited), USA, 1942; 94m
Gabin made two movies during his brief, unhappy stint in Hollywood. This odd little mood piece, an attempt to recreate the ambience of his pre-war poetic realist classics, was the first. Fritz Lang began this story of an itenerant fisherman named Bobo (Gabin) who, fearing he may have killed a man by accident, hides out on a barge and saves Anna (Ida Lupino) from a suicide attempt. He was replaced after four days by able hand Archie Mayo. Although the plot doesn't quite add up, there's something wonderful about this moody, fogbound melodrama, and Gabin and Lupino make a terrific couple. The level of talent on hand is considerable: John O'Hara wrote the script (with uncredited help from Nunnally Johnson), Mark Hellinger produced it, and it was was shot by the great Lucien Ballard. With Thomas Mitchell and Claude Rains.
Mon July 1: 3;
Wed July 3: 3 & 7
Thurs July 4: 3 & 7

LES BAS-FONDS / THE LOWER DEPTHS
Jean Renoir, France, 1936; 90m
The only things Russian about this adaptation of Maxim Gorki's play are the names of characters and places - otherwise, it's pre-war French Renoir all the way. Gabin is Pepel, the cheerful thief who befriends the Baron, played by the great Louis Jouvet, the night he breaks into his house. It happens to be the Baron's last night in the house, which he's forced to turn over to his creditors to make good on his gambling debts. They meet again in the most low-down, flea-bitten boarding house in the history of low-down, flea-bitten boarding houses. Gabin and Jouvet are nothing short of magical together, and Jouvet's walk alone is worth the price of admission. With Junie Astor and Suzy Prim, and a glorious score by Jean Wiener.
Thurs July 4: 1, 5 & 9
Sun July 7: 1, 5 & 9

LE JOUR SE LÈVE / DAYBREAK
Marcel Carné, France, 1939; 92m
Prodgious artistry came together to create this classic: director Carné's briliant collaboration with screenwriter Jacques Prévert, Alexander Trauner's sets, a cast consisting of near-mythic Jean Gabin, exquisite Arletty and slimily satanic Jules Berry. At dawn, a young factory worker (Gabin) remembers how he came to be a murderer, and the story of his doomed love for a flower girl (delicate Jacqueline Laurent) follows its predestined path in flash back. Marrying poetry and realism, beauty and melancholy, LE JOUR SE LÈVE tellingly expresses prewar French pessimism.
Fri July 5: 1, 5:15 & 9:15
Sat July 6: 3:10 & 7:20

GUEULE D'AMOUR
Jean Grémillion, France, 1937; 102m
Made partly while Grémillon was working at the UFA Studios in Berlin, this adaptation of a novel by André Boucler features the young Jean Gabin as a foreign-legion Casanova - the "lady killer" Lucien Bourrache - who meets his match in the mysterious seductress Madeleine (Mireille Balin). Love strikes for real this time for Lucien, but the sincerity of his lover's affection remains unpredictably in doubt. Eschewing romanticism and melodramatic conventions for a sober and realistic treatment, Grémillon creates a carefully nuanced aura of suspense that culminates in the film's tragic dénouement. The sizzling electricity between Gabin and Balin made GUEULE D'AMOUR a rare popular success for the director.
Sun July 7: 3 & 7:15
Mon July 8: 2 & 6

LE PLAISIR
Max Ophüls, France, 1951; 95m
Featuring a dream cast - including Claude Dauphin, Danielle Darrieux, Jean Gabin, Pierre Brasseur, Simone Simon, Daniel Gélin, Jean Servais, Gaby Morland, Madeleine Renaud and Peter Ustinov - LE PLAISIR renders into exquisite Ophülsian cinema three stories by Guy de Maupassant. In the first, "Le Masque," an old man temporarily regains his youth by wearing a magic mask to a ball. In the second, "La Maison Telier," a group of prostitutes embark on an annual country holiday. In the last, a painter who makes his models his mistresses is forced to marry one (Simone Simon) after she cripples herself in a suicide attempt. Each tale is an exhilarating dance, alternating movement and stasis, light and shadow, pleasure and pain.
Mon July 8: 4 & 8
Fri July 12: 4:15 & 8:30
Sat July 13: 3:19 & 7:15
Tue July 16: 9

EN CAS DE MALHEUR
Claude Autant-Lara, France, 1958; 105m
There have been many screen adaptations of novels by the prolific Georges Simenon, but this is one of the very best. Gabin is André, a successful, straightfaced and long-married lawyer. He is approached by a young girl named Yvette (Brigitte Bardot) who has been arrested for shoplifting with her friend, and she offers her body as payment. André begins a torrid, self-destructive affair, blind to the fact that Yvette already has a boyfriend. EN CAS DE MALHEUR, written by the team of Aurenche and Bost and directed by Claude Autant-Lara, was unjustly ridiculed by Francois Truffaut at the time of its release, and it also caused a furor of another kind, incited by a quick (but unforgettable) glimpse of a naked Bardot. Today, it's the poignance of Gabin's characterization that makes the deepest impression.
Tue July 9: 2 & 6:30
Wed July 10: 4:15 & 8:30

LA MARIE DU PORT
Marcel Carné, France, 1949; 117m
Adated from a Georges Simenon novel, LA MARIE stars the great Gabin as a worldweary Cherbourg restaurateur who accompanies his mistress to her father's funeral and starts an affair with her willing younger sister (Nicole Courcel). Carné mines every ambiguity and irony from this jeu d'amour, and his superb cinematographer Henri Alekan catches the authentic flavor and life of the little Breton fishing village where the love triangle plays out.
Tue July 9: 4:15 & 8:45
Wed July 10: 2 & 6:30

LA TRAVERSÉE DE PARIS / FOUR BAGS FULL
Claude Autant-Lara, France, 1956; 80m
Based on Marcel Aymé's novel, this is one of Claude Autant-Lara's very best movies, a deceptively simple tale of Grandgil (Gabin), a famous artist, and Marcel (Bourvil), a cab driver, lugging black market pork across occupied Paris at night. There are no heroes here, no grand acts of resistance, just two guys, one in it for the experience and the other in it for the money. As they cross the city, you get a good sense of the chillingly grey, neutralized morality of an occupied country. Gabin and Bourvil are nothing short of extraordinary together. With, in one of the film's most memorable scenes, the great Louis de Funès.
Thurs July 11: 4:45 & 8:30
Mon July 15: 3 & 6:45
Tue July 16: 3:30 & 7:15

ZOUZOU
Marc Allégret, France, 1934; 92m
This was one of two memorable films starring the great Josephine Baker (the other is Princess Tam Tam). Here she's paired with Gabin, and they're magical together. Zouzou and Jean grow up as adoptive brother and sister, working their way from an itinerant life in the circus to the music hall, where she makes a living as a laundress and he makes his as an electrician. The older they get, the more deeply she falls in love with him. When she gets her chance on the stage, her brother has a murder rap pinned on him. Basically a vehicle for Baker, beautifully photographed by the great Boris Kaufman, the film features the knockout production number "Haiti."
Thurs July 11: 2:45 & 6:30
Mon July 15: 1, 4:45 & 8:30
Tue July 16: 1:30 & 5:15

FRENCH CANCAN
Jean Renoir, France, 1955; 102m
For his first post-war French film, Jean Renoir decided to take on the Belle Epoque with this story of Danglard, the music hall Diaghelev who revived the cancan. On one level, this is a sumptuous Technicolor all-star extravaganza, a joyously triumphant bouquet of dancing, music and impressionist yellows, greens and reds (in many ways, it's Renoir's tribute to his father). On another level, it's a profound meditation on love and art - both fleeting. Both transcendent. Gabin, the most French of all French actors, is Danglard, and there are few images in cinema more touching than that of Danglard sitting behind the curtain during the unveiling of the cancan, the impresario forever aloof from the joy of his own creation.
Fri July 12: 2 & 6:15
Sat July 13: 1, 5:10 & 9:15

LE CHAT / THE CAT
Pierre Granier-Deferre, France, 1971; 88m
An aging couple (Jean Gabin and Simone Signoret) live together in mutual animosity, so virulent and complete that they shop and eat within feet of each other - never speaking or acknowledging that the spouse exists. Their home, once beautiful, now condemned, lies at the end of a cul-de-sac, its sad state a metaphor for the decay of their marriage. An engrossing study of character, LE CHAT features the splendidly weathered faces of Gabin and Signoret, practically historical landmarks of French cinema.
Sun July 14: 1, 5:15 & 9:30
Wed July 17: 4:30 & 9
Thurs July 18: 3:30

MÉLODIE EN SOUS-SOL / ANY NUMBER CAN WIN
Henri Verneuil, France, 1963; 118m
Gabin is Charles, an aging career criminal who's had it with bourgeois propriety and decides to have a second go at robbing the grand casino in Cannes - he's already done a prison stretch for a first failed attempt. He plots the caper, down to the last tiny detail, with his old cellmate, the much younger and less experienced Francis. In the grand tradition of Rififi and Bob le Flambeur, MÉLODIE EN SOUS-SOL is one tough, vastly entertaining movie, with the weathered Gabin and the beautiful young Alain Delon at the peaks of their respective forms.
Sun July 14: 2:50 & 7:10
Wed July 17: 2 & 6:30
Thurs July 18: 1

Thanks to Fred von Bernewitz for help with images.

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