Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

writers_reign There's much to admire here - atmosphere, jazz-influenced soundtrack, noirish photography, Hazel Scott and, last but not least Jean Gabin and Danielle Darrieux (who gets a 'with the participation of ...' credit which means she doesn't turn up until halfway through the fourth reel and even then it's little more than an extended cameo). By the late fifties Gabin had made the transition from hood to flic - he played Maigret three times - and here he portrays a semi maverick Inspector investigating the murder of a nightclub boss. He enjoyed a long association with director Gilles Graingier who this time around seems to be under the influence of Jean-Pierre Melville, especially Bob, Le flambeur, although there's not a lot wrong with that. The one jarring not is the plot or lack of same which is unsatisfactory to say the least however there are compensations in the shape of Darrieux - who, if she makes it to the first of May, will celebrate her one hundredth birthday - and Gabin.

evening1 This film has some lovely strengths, beginning with beefy yet still-virile 1958 Gabin. He's always interesting to watch, and he carries a gravitas here that leaves one hanging on his every word.The film is set to a nice jazz score, including French and English songs from a black American entertainer at a time when Paris was more embracing of such talent than her native shores.I was less thrilled with the ditsy moll in this film, an actress I'd never seen before -- Nadja Tiller, who resembles both Natalie Wood and Jeanne Moreau but seriously lacks their talent. She was pretty but imbecilic and I was surprised the hard-boiled Gabin character fell for her at all. To view their non-sexual time together, it's clearly a case of a middle-aged man taking care of the child he never had and a psychologically underdeveloped girl seeking a substitute for her real, less-kind father. Another deficit in this film is the flimsy mystery at its heart. We start with an uninteresting murder victim and progress to a duplicitous pharmacist and mumbo jumbo about drug addiction. It wasn't easy to care much about who really done it. This isn't one of Gabin's masterpieces but if you're a fan of this handsome French hunk it won't be a total waste of your time.

silverauk They form a couple that you don't forget: Inspector Georges Vallois (Jean Gabin) and Lucky Fridel (Nadja Tiller), the latter being a former miss Austria. Her beauty and her charm change the mind of the inspector and turn him away from his duties. There is a game of attraction and repulsion between both as never seen in French cinema. He could be her father. There is a scene where Vallois answers tho her father that she could end up in prostitution if her father does not give her money anymore. Does Valois feel pity for her? The novel by Jacques Robert inspired the experienced director Gilles Grangier to this movie with a peculiar ending. Also Thérèse Marken (Danielle Darieux) give the dialogues between her and Vallois a captivating tension. Vallois is a bit Maigret-like but he has his own touch and is more human. It is also remarkable that the writer Jacques Robert adapted later a novel of Georges Simenon for the screen (Maigret voit rouge). This movie has kept all its freshness after those years but the problem of junkies has still grown more.

taylor9885 Jean Gabin is not playing Inspecteur Maigret here, but he is a detective investigating the murder of a night club owner who also deals heroin. Nadja Tiller plays a glamourous habituee of the club who falls for Gabin; she is also a junkie. Her scene of withdrawal is far from the gritty reality, she just seems to have a hangover and sweats a bit.I was impressed with Hazel Scott in a small part as the club's pianist-singer. This Barbadian-born performer married Adam Clayton Powell and had to leave the US in the Fifties because of her leftist politics. She was played by Vanessa L. Williams in a recent made for TV movie. On the basis of this small part, she could have had a career like Dorothy Dandridge's.