Les Portes de la Nuit (Marcel Carné, 1945)

Nathalie Nattier, Yves Montand, and Jean Vilar in Les Portes de la Nuit

Jean Diego: Yves Montand
Malou: Nathalie Nattier
Georges: Pierre Brasseur
The Homeless Man: Jean Vilar
Guy Sénéchal: Serge Reggiani
M. Sénéchal: Saturnin Fabre
Raymond Lécuyer: Raymond Bussières
Claire Lécuyer: Sylvia Bataille
Cricri Lécuyer: Christian Simon
M. Quinquina: Julien Carette
Étiennette: Dany Robin
Étiennette's Boyfriend: Jean Maxime

Director: Marcel Carné
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert
Cinematography: Philippe Agostini
Production design: Alexandre Trauner
Film editing: Jean Feyte, Marthe Gottié
Music: Joseph Kosma

Marcel Carné's Les Portes de la Nuit was a flop in postwar France, and its poetically vague title may indicate some of the reasons why. The film attempts to walk a line between whimsy and tragedy, its vision of life in postwar Paris a little too suffused with romantic melancholy for audiences grappling with the day-to-day uncertainties of existence. The setting is February 1945, after the liberation of Paris but before the end of the war, a period that feels like a kind of limbo. A homeless man with the gift of foreseeing other people's fates walks through the streets, first encountering our protagonist, Jean Diego, a former member of the Resistance, on the Métro, Jean is going to see the wife of Raymond Lécuyer, a fellow Resistance fighter, to tell her that her husband is dead. But when he breaks the news, she bursts out laughing, whereupon the door opens to reveal a very much alive Lécuyer, who wants to know what's so funny. Jean, it turns out, had been captured along with Lécuyer and had overheard the orders sending him to the firing squad, but the execution didn't take place. Eventually, the plot will reveal who ratted on Lécuyer, and the homeless man will predict the rat's fate. But this story of the clash of Resistance and collaboration takes a secondary place in the film to the romance that develops between Jean and the beautiful Malou, the wife of Georges, who made his fortune in armaments during the war, as the film turns into a muddle of coincidences. Carné was a great director, and even this weakling among his films gives us something to watch, including a performance by the 25-year-old Yves Montand. He's a bit too young for the role, given that Jean was supposed to be a soldier of fortune before the war, but he was Carné's second choice after Jean Gabin, whom the director wanted to co-star with Marlene Dietrich as Malou. After starting to work with Carné, Gabin and Dietrich bowed out and went on to make Martin Roumagnac with Georges Lacombe instead -- not the most felicitous of choices. The other major distinction of Les Portes de la Nuit is the score by Joseph Kosma, which introduced his song "Les Feuilles Mortes," better known in the States as "Autumn Leaves," with lyrics by Johnny Mercer replacing the original ones by Jacques Prévert.

Les Visiteurs du Soir (Marcel Carné, 1942)

Marie Déa and Alain Cuny in Les Visiteurs du Soir

Dominique: Arletty
Gilles: Alain Cuny 
Anne: Marie Déa 
Baron Hugues: Fernand Ledoux 
Renaud: Marcel Herrand 
The Devil: Jules Berry

Director: Marcel Carné 
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert, Pierre Laroche 
Cinematography: Roger Hubert
Production design: Alexandre Trauner
Film editing: Henri Rust
Music: Joseph Kosma, Maurice Thiriet

Alexandre Trauner's sets and costumes for Marcel Carné's Les Visiteurs du Soir were based on the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, although I was more reminded of the work of early 20th century illustrators like Walter Crane, N.C. Wyeth, and Maxfield Parrish, who were also influenced by that celebrated 15th-century illuminated manuscript. Trauner was not credited for his work on the film however. He was a Jew in occupied France, and the credit went to a "front," Georges Wakhévitch, just as, little more than a decade later, blacklisted Americans working in Hollywood were forced to hide behind their own fronts. The story of the making of Les Visiteurs du Soir is almost as interesting as the film itself.Not only was some of the behind-the-scenes work done sub rosa, to fool the Nazis and their collaborators, even the film's attempts to display luxury were thwarted by real-life conditions. Although the film was given a generous budget, the costuming was hindered by a shortage of suitable fabric, and in the banquet scenes the food had to be treated with an unpleasant substance to keep the extras and the crew from gobbling it down between takes. Even so, because the film deals with the manipulations of emissaries from the devil to the court of a French nobleman, it was taken to be a kind of allegory of the German invasion of France, and the devil played by Jules Berry to be a satirical representation of Adolf Hitler. The director and the screenwriters denied that was their intent.The film was a big critical and commercial hit in a France starved for movies -- films made in America and Britain were banned -- and while it's not on a par with Carné's 1945 masterpiece Children of Paradise, it remains a classic. Arletty is superbly seductive as Dominique, although it's doubtful that anyone would ever mistake her for the boy she pretends to be for part of the film. Trouser roles are always a problematic convention, but Arletty's "boy" looks to be in his 40s, which she was. As her fellow emissary, Alain Cuny is suitably dashing, and while Marie Déa is not quite the peerless beauty the screenplay wants her to be, the doomed love affair of Anne and Gilles gives an otherwise rather chilly film some warmth. But the film is stolen by Jules Berry as the devil, camping it up amusingly, at one point literally playing with fire. As a fantasy film, Les Visiteurs du Soir doesn't have the consummate style of Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946), to which it is sometimes compared, but its moods are darker and its story may be deeper. 

Remorques (Jean Grémillon, 1941)

Michèle Morgan and Jean Gabin in Remorques

André Laurent: Jean Gabin
Yvonne Laurent: Madeleine Renaud
Catherine: Michèle Morgan
Gabriel Tanguy: Charles Blavette
Marc: Jean Marchat
Renée Tanguy: Nane Germon
Radioman: Jean Dasté
Georges: René Bergeron
Dr. Maulette: Henri Poupon
Marie Poubennec: Anne Laurens
Le Meur: Marcel Pérès
Pierre Poubennec: Marcel Duhamel

Director: Jean Grémillon
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert, André Cayatte
Based on a novel by Roger Vercel
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Production design: Alexandre Trauner
Film editing: Yvonne Martin
Music: Roland Manuel

Remorques features Jean Gabin at his most effortlessly rugged and romantic, playing André Laurent, the captain of a tugboat that rescues distressed ships and is paid a percentage of the assessed value of their salvaged cargo. He's happily married to the delicate Yvonne, who longs for him to give up the hazardous work and retire to a less stormy port. Still, André is also devoted to his longtime crew and is reluctant to leave them to the mercies of the company's management. One stormy night they go out to rescue a ship whose captain, Marc, is a nasty piece of work. Among other things, he has a very unhappy wife, Catherine, who manages to escape from the ship in a lifeboat that is picked up by André and his crew. When the storm begins to subside, Marc manages to break the towline that is pulling his ship to shore and head to the port of destination under his own steam, thereby depriving André's tug of its share of the rescue money. But André has salvaged something else from the rescue: Catherine, to whom he is attracted at the peril of his marriage. As their relationship heats up, however, Yvonne becomes seriously ill. Director Jean Grémillon makes the most of this blend of action and romance, keeping it from sinking into mush by leavening things with solid supporting performances and providing a piquant, bittersweet outcome. Remorques was made under difficult circumstances as France fell to the Germans, and was not released until after its stars, Gabin and Michèle Morgan, had left the country for Hollywood.

Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir, 1936)

René Lefèvre in Le Crime de Monsieur Lange

Amédée Lange: René Lefèvre
Valentine: Florelle
Batala: Jules Berry
The Concierge: Marcel Lévesque
The Concierge's Wife: Odette Talazac
Meunier's Son: Henri Guisol
Charles: Maurice Baquet
Edith: Sylvia Bataille
Estelle: Nadia Sibirskaia

Director: Jean Renoir
Screenplay: Jean Castanier, Jacques Prévert, Jean Renoir
Cinematography: Jean Bachelet

M. Lange's crime is murder, and he gets away with it. This droll dark comedy is a vehicle for Jean Renoir's anti-fascist politics, and to enjoy it to the fullest you probably have to have been there -- "there" being Europe in 1936. But it still resonates 80-plus years later with its story of a little guy exploited by a venal fat cat. Lange, who writes adventure stories about "Arizona Jim" in the wild West, works for a greedy, corrupt publisher named Batala, who not only stiffs him on a contract to publish the stories, but also inserts advertising plugs into the story itself, making Arizona Jim pause to pop one of the sponsor's pills before launching into action. Batala is also a shameless womanizer who impregnates Estelle, the girlfriend of Charles, the bicycle messenger who works for him. (In a rather cold-hearted twist you probably won't see in movies today, everyone rejoices when the baby dies.) Fleeing from his creditors, Batala reportedly dies in a train wreck, and to salvage their jobs, his employees, encouraged by Meunier, the son of Batala's chief creditor, form a cooperative to run the publishing company. It's a huge success, with Lange's stories becoming incredibly popular -- so much so that a film company wants to buy the rights to make an Arizona Jim movie. Unfortunately, Lange doesn't own the rights, as Batala reveals when he turns up very much alive, disguised as a priest who happened to be standing by him during the crash. When Batala begins demonstrating his old ways, including making a play for all the available women in the company as well as asserting his rights to Arizona Jim and the profits it has made, Lange shoots him, then flees with his girlfriend Valentine. Aided by Meunier, they reach an inn near the border -- which one isn't specified -- where, while Lange rests up, Valentine tells his story and leaves it up to the people at the inn whether they will turn him in. There's some famously show-offy camerawork from cinematographer Jean Bachelet, but the real energy of the film comes from Renoir's company of vivid, talkative characters, whose chatter and whose relationships unfold so rapidly that you may want to see the film twice to appreciate them. Le Crime de Monsieur Lange is second-tier Renoir but, with its genuine affection for human beings, it's better than most directors' top-tier work.

Watched on Filmstruck