The Movies ... and the People Who Make Them (1939)

"The MOVIES • • • • 1939" FOREIGN FILMS in the UNITED STATES — NOVEMBER Once again a monthly review of the foreign field becomes virtually a selection of French films and it is surprising to see how many reels are still flowing in from France, despite the war. But it should be remembered that sometimes nearly two years elapse between production abroad and release here — due partly to the relatively limited demand for foreign prod' uct and partly to American importers who, until recently, were careful not to bring over pictures that might lose them their small but highly critical audience. Quai des Brumes (Port of Shadows) and La Marseillaise, now making their first ap' pearance in New York, are not new films; the former had reached England nearly a year ago, while the latter began under the auspices of the Blum government. QUAI DES BRUMES Quai des Brumes stars Jean Gabin, the darling of France and the most highly paid darling at that. He is also their most typed performer, moving tirelessly thru his countless films with the same unwavering, competent ease; always a joy to watch and to admire for his restraint and superb timing. Director is Marcel Carne, who has been here before with B.zarre, Bizarre but hits a new high with Quai des Brumes. It arrives loaded down with gold medals and awards and will undoubtedly come close on the heels of Harvest in the year's Ten Best. Its full story is not easy to grasp at first sight since it moves from side to side almost as much as forward. The central figure (Gabin) is a deserter from the French army who flees to Le Havre to make a getaway by ship. On the waterfront his plans become hopelessly tangled with the bunch of derelicts he meets: a trio of gangsters; a young girl (Michele Morgan) whose love-life has caused her pe. verse old guardian to do away with her men-friends in a convenient cellar; a neurotic artist who sees his own suicide as the most practical way of supplying the deserter with clothes and papers; and various and sundry wharf-rats who pass on and off the screen with a shrug of the shoulders to indicate the futility of existence. Between them these abandoned people, whether the deserter’s friends or foes, succeed in blocking his path to freedom. This picture is worth special study as an example of splendid unity of mood and movement. Director, writer, cameraman and actors have grasped not only the superficial aspects of wharf life but the intent and style of its inhabitants' existence. The camera brings the peasoup fog of the port down around the characters with the finality of prison walls and then passes among them to record them moving in endless circles like trapped animals, some searching for escape and some resigning themselves to what little nourishment they can pick from the floor. The mood remains unchanged despite the variety of scenes — in the lonely scavenger’s hut where the deserter finds refuge, among the ships at the wharf, in the old guardian’s trinket shop where tinkling glass bells announce the entrances and exits of doomed people. Even the relieving note of the gay port fair and con by Nigel Dennis siderable amusing dialog manage to leave an attertaste oi bitterness. It you have not an irremediable aversion to gloom on the screen and don t insist on a climax wreathed in smites rather than wreaths Quai des Brumes should give you a great deal of pleasure and leave many lovely sequences in your mind long alter you have seen it. Michele Morgan, one of Frances most attractive actresses, is in most of them and is a thoroughly satisfactory opposite to her lover, Jean Gabm. LA MARSEILLAISE The creator of Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir, has turned his talents to the French Revolution — not the Revolution of Mane Antoinette and similar screen luxuries, but the far more real and less spectacular Revolution ot the people. I say less spectacular because Renoir has not made his revolutionists into either fiends or heroes, nor has he stressed the aspects of pomp and circumstance, uniforms and silken gowns, so loved by the more romantic producers. He has shown us the people of Marseilles as they probably were; enthusiastic and unresplendent, and he has shown why their marching song "La Marseillaise” became the most famous of all French songs. His picture is devoted to the towns and villages of France — to the spirit that sent their half-trained men to back their comrades in Paris against the King and Marie Antoinette; he has no time to waste on Tyrone Powers and the correct kissing of the royal hand, despite the fact that court scenes are an inevitable part of his picture. As in Grand Illusion he has made the fullest possible use of the camera, keeping his scenes alive by allowing it to travel in calculated sweeps that relate what has gone before with what is to come. His musical background is the songs of revolutionary France — used cleverly in coordination with the movements and marches of his characters. Just as Quai des Brumes reiterates its single mood of despair and attempted escape so does La Marseillaise insist on presenting the spirit of the times. (In this respect it is significant that the principal actors, Pierre Renoir and Louis Jouvet, do not play revolutionary parts; the revolutionists are simply — people.) This will be disappointing to those who like their screenplays to be orthodox in substance and development and I can only ask them to see this picture with tolerance and understanding of its originality. THAT THEY MAY LIVE The third French picture is not an easy one to digest today. That They May Live, directed by Abel Gance, is an open plea for peace, a study of the horrors of war that is almost agonizing to sit through. Made presumably for French consumption it has been banned in France — to show it there today would be like turning the knife in the wound. Its story is simply that of a French soldier of the World War who, aghast at the horrors of modern conflict, becomes obsessed with the idea of raising his fallen comrades from the grave to march in protest against any future use of armed force. Its opening battle scenes are as good as any I have seen on the screen before — realistic, compelling, in a way that is almost unique in war films. Away from the battlefield the vitality of the picture collapses badly; most of its middle reels are broken, halting and distressingly vague. At best it makes no compromise with its audience, refusing to water down reality and heedless of the natural weaknesses of the average stomach. Its star, Victor Francen, acts with splendid dignity and conviction where the script allows; it is no fault of his that the makers of the film have allowed their brain-child to crumble to nothing when the scene of action changes from war to peace. RASPUTIN and CONFLIT Harry Baur s latest vehicle Rasputin is as much his own as a Laughton picture is Laughton’s. His role is almost a double one, since his task is to let you decide for yourself whether the famous Russian wizard was a lady-killer or a miracle-man, or both. (Incidentally this is a good scheme for attracting a curious audience while simultaneously hushing the censor.) His playing results in some spectacular and frequently impressive sequences, all laid around the high spots of a double life and shifting smartly from piety to chorus girls and back again. I wouldn’t call it a specially good picture, but it has its moments, and what it lacks in plausibility it makes up for in liveliness and intrigue. Conflit is appearing as The Affair Lafont and brings us back to the more normal French preoccupation with marital mix-ups. It snaps into action like a runner, opening with shots of a young woman dashing upstairs, crying that she is determined to tell “him,” while a second young woman at the foot of the stairs calmly produces a revolver from her handbag and brings the runner down with a bang. From there we cut to the district attorney’s office and the opening of a preliminary investigation. Under careful probing the lady with the gun tells the whole story of the events that led up to the shooting — events that we are shown in a series of flash-backs. It would spoil the story to explain it: enough that the reasons are not the reasons you would imagine and the eternal triangle is so twisted into circles as to be scarcely recognizable. There is as much dialogue as there are pictures, but it is smooth and subtle. If you like trial scenes, try this one — especially as when the defendants are pretty French girls like Corinne Luchaire and Annie Ducaux we are only too happy to sit back in comfortable security and watch the demon prosecutor twirl his whiskers and give them the works. We know they must be innocent, anyway . . . I € 110