Die Marie vom Hafen

From the outset Gabin comes across as a well-off restless middle-aged man who decides to buy a boat but then lets it stay on the water without giving the skipper any orders; who has a wife but takes an interest in a much younger Marie, who also does not seem to know what she wants, either, seemingly in love with a young man and also with Gabin's aura of wealth; and at the end he seems to get the young girl and lose his wife but he looks unfazed.

Frankly, I could not give a damn about any of the characters in this flick. Gabin keeps giving anyone he meets a piece of his mind, and no one seems to stand up to him, not even Marie (except that she seems to see him as an opportunity to leave her squalid little life in some backwater town near Cherbourg).

Photography is nothing to write home about but it shows a French waterfront town in all its ordinariness, recovering from the recently ended world war, and that is perhaps the single most interesting aspect about this film.

Gabin is always worth watching. When he is silent, his eyes and face say more than any words could. But that is not enough to make LA MARIE DU PORT anything other than a waste of time.

Jean Gabin is a successful businessman in Cherboug with a hotel, a thriving restaurant on the ground floor, and a movie theater next door. He's also got a live-in girlfriend, Blanchette Brunoy. He takes her to the small port she grew up in for her father's funeral, and meets her sister, Nicole Courcel, who's working at a local inn. She's a solemn, sullen girl with a dissatisfied, jealous boyfriend. Gabin flirts with her; he flirts with all pretty women and sometimes sleeps with them to assert his independence . But as Mlle Brunoy talks about moving on to Paris, Mlle Courcel talks about coming to Cherbourg, and Gabin talks about sailing to Tahiti.

Who is chasing what or who?

Marcel Carne directs from a novel by Simenon and a script by Marcel Carne, which means it's either an incredibly cynical movie which he directs without a hint that all of this is not real and desperate and important to the characters. Or Carne is being romantic. Or maybe both or neither.

Immediate background:"les enfants du paradis" (currently in the top 250)triumphantly reasserted Carne's genius in 1945;it was followed by "les portes de la nuit" which met mixed critical favor :hindsight has done this last great opus justice and it is now looked upon as one of Carné's major works.In 1947,the director began to work on "la fleur de l'age" -another collaboration with Prévert- with the glorious Arletty and the newcomer Anouk Aimée ,but it was never finished (and however there's a page on the IMDb!)and Prevert called it quits .

They say that he helped for "la Marie du port" but he is not credited .If he really did,these are his weakest lines ever.Weak lines for a weak screenplay (adapted from a Simenon book which must not be among his best either)...and a weak film .Coming after the absolute masterpiece of the French cinema ("les enfants du paradis")and such a magnificent if flawed work as "les portes de la nuit",it's more than a let down.A thin plot progresses with difficulty and the actors are not convincing:the rich forty-something (Gabin)is Gabin in the part of Gabin;the young leads (Nicole Courcel and Claude Romain) are totally bland :the critics complain that in "les portes de la nuit" Yves Montand and Nathalie Nattier were subpar too,but they had emotion ,enthusiasm -and Prévert 's lines going for them.

Marcel,with his dreams of the islands in the sun and the ships who sail away from this rotten world recalls a rehashed theme from "Quai des brumes" (1938)The viewer will find solace in Carné the movie buff:Gabin owns a cinema and we see excerpts from two movies "l'idiot" (Georges Lampin,1945) and chiefly Murnau's "tabu" .The latter might have fitted the film longing for something far away or something pure,had it been integrated to the plot (remember how,in "les enfants du paradis" ,the theater sequences prodigiously mixed with the main plot)

Carné pays another tribute to his colleague Jean Gremillon ,by displaying a poster of "pattes blanches " three of four times;Besides,"la Marie du port" sometimes resembles "pattes blanches" (1948)but cannot hold a candle to it.

With "la Marie du port" ,Carné enters the second part of his career which is the least interesting.Carné without Prevert is McCartney without Lennon in pop music.

This film is compelling to watch, and has the typical Carné magic. It is based on a romantic Simenon novel which contains no crime, high drama, murder, or mystery. It is about people, just people. The male lead is played by Jean Gabin in a masterful and well-measured performance. He could easily have overdone it, but he got the tone just right. (After all, Jean Gabin had the ability to steal as many scenes as he wanted to, if he had wanted to, but he was a team player.) The film could have been uninteresting in the wrong hands, but with Carné directing, Gabin starring, and an excellent cast of highly talented actors, it succeeds marvellously in entrancing the viewer. The character Marie, of the title, is an 18 year-old girl played by Nicole Courcel with great intensity. The Port of the title, often spoken of by the characters simply as 'Port', is a fishing town called in the film Port-en-Dessin. It is not far from Cherbourg. The action of the film takes place in both those towns. It is eye-opening to see the lack of traffic, the bare streets and roads, the few people, the horse-drawn carts, the simple sailors, and the entire lack of tourists. That was the France of then! Not the France of now! So we have here a haunting depiction of a lost world of traditional France. They were of course still slowly recovering after the War, and there was no luxury to be found. Gabin plays a successful owner of a large brasserie in Cherbourg called Brasserie Centrale, and he also owns a cinema adjoining it. He is affluent but restless and somewhat bored. For a considerable time he has lived with, but has never married, a beautiful younger woman called Odile, played very well by Blanchette Brunoy. But their relationship has lost its excitement. She spends much of her time lounging in bed, even eating her lunch there. He works too hard. They have tired of each other, but have not yet dared to say so. And there is a considerable age gap. The film starts however in 'Port', with the funeral of Odile's father. The film of that town is really extraordinary, the shabby houses, the women in their long black garments, the complete absence of cars. It might as well be 1700. Odile returns to Port for the funeral, after which all of her large family leave the town in wagons except for her younger sister Marie, who chooses to stay behind and live alone in the house, and work as a waitress and tend the bar in the quaint Café du Port, which is frequented by all the locals, and there is plenty local 'local colour' there too. Gabin has driven Odile to the funeral but chosen not to attend, and sits waiting in the Cafe du Port. Much later on that day, Marie comes in and he meets her for the first time. He is thunderstruck by her strangely arresting personality, her silences and simmering emotions which can be seen swirling under the surface, but she never lets them out. She is one of those deeply intense girls on the threshold of womanhood who does not know which way to turn. She sees before her a vast forest of Life, but which path shall she follow? She has a lust to live, but equally she contemplates suicide. In other words, she is 18. Highly aware that the age gap between him and this girl is much greater even than between him and her older sister, Gabin treats her gruffly and tries to distance himself from what he sees as a hopeless attraction with no possible future. And there are other complications, such as a hysterical boy who is in love with Marie and who really does attempt suicide. It is all very intense stuff, despite Gabin's constant attempts to prevent things getting out of hand. I cannot reveal any of the events which ensue without infringing upon the reviewer's Code of Honour. And so, bowing politely, I take my leave of the French seacoast of 1950 and leave those who wish to partake of this delightful film to discover for themselves the many surprises in store.

Carne was strong in making images, but did not have a gift for using dialogue that wasn't the most scintillating, but could be made lively (see as an example most of Truffaut's films). This picture has not stood the test of time, like most of those Carne made from 1945 on. Simenon always poses a problem for directors when there is no murder, just a character study as here, and Carne seems lost.

His star is at the top of his form, but that doesn't say much when Gabin only has to appear a little grumpy. When he sees his wife in bed with another man, it's just an occasion for some mildly risqué patter, no violence. The other actors are strictly B-list. Blanchette Brunoy has an agreeable smile and voluptuous body, but not much range. Nicole Courcel, who is supposed to be Gabin's love interest, has an irritating pouty mouth and blank brown eyes. I grew very tired of looking at her.