Pépé le Moko

One of the classic crime fiction films ever made and a fantastic time capsule containing the distilled exotic ambience of French colonial Algiers. Like many French movie stars, Jean Gabin is no oil painting, but he does have a certain energy and charisma, and he needs to, in order to avoid being upstaged by the colourful menagerie supporting players who surround him. Wanted by the French authorities, master criminal Pepe le Moco and his gang take refuge in the seamy labyrinth of the Algiers Casbah, where the police can never quite catch up with them, but slowly his sanctuary becomes his prison... Meanwhile the wily local inspector bides his time until a woman provides the flashpoint that could prove to be Pepe's undoing. If you have enjoyed the feel of Casablanca you may well fall in love with this one.

A gang of thieves hide out above Algiers in the Arab section of the city, the Casbah, in "Pepe le Moko," a 1937 film - an homage to the U. S. gangster movie - that is often credited as the inspiration for the film noir craze that swept U. S. cinema.

In order to draw attention to the American version, "Algiers," producer Walter Wanger tried to destroy all copies, subsequently buying the rights to keep it off the screen. But you can't keep a good movie down.

Pepe le Moko (Jean Gabin) is wanted by the police, so if he leaves the crowded and maze-like Casbah to go into town, they will nail him. There is an inspector who keeps an eye on Pepe, Inspector Slimane.

Pepe and the inspector have become friends, but Pepe knows Slimane is just waiting for him to make his move. When Pepe meets the exotic and bejeweled Gaby, a situation presents itself where he might risk his freedom.

Pepe is the great French actor Jean Gabin, a marvelous-looking, rugged actor with tremendous magnetism. It's no wonder Marlene Dietrich chased him all over the world.

Gabin's Pepe is the forerunner of the Bogart persona - he's a confident, handsome man, dismissive of women and has the ability to be both funny and cruel. He lives with his devoted girlfriend, Ines, and is surrounded by his motley mob who are familiar with the seedier side of life.

There are some brilliant moments and great performances in this film, which is rich in atmosphere and interesting faces. The French star Mireille Balin, whose real-life story is more bizarre than any fiction, is Gaby, a kept woman who enchants le Moko as they talk about their great love for Paris, most especially, Place Blanche.

Line Noro is Ines, doomed to love and lose Pepe, and Frehel is Tania, a friend. In one of the best scenes in the film, Tania reminisces about her youth and sings along with her own recording. A wonderful artist. The entire cast is marvelous.

The director, Julien Duvivier, orchestrates the proceedings with tremendous style and tension, capturing the heat, the light and the sounds of the Casbah.

Often imitated - by "The Third Man," "Odd Man Out," "Casablanca," "The Time Of Your Life," "To Have And Have Not," "The Wages of Fear," -- and let's not forget Pepe le Pew - "Pepe le Moko" and Jean Gabin's Pepe stand on their own as hallmarks in film history.

Pepe le Moko marks a fundamental step in the aesthetic development of european cinema. It is also one of many great crime films of the thirties that is sadly overlooked in many critics top 100 lists.

Through it's lush sense of location and character Duvivier builds up a sweaty, exotic and complex picture of the underworld life of the Kasbah and the vast panorama of engagingly seedy characters especially Pepe le Moko, played with such effortlessly charismatic ease by Jean Gabin. But it is the rich claustrophobic atmosphere and the relentless pressure of the police that powers this film along to it's elegantly tragic conclusion. A masterpiece, and the clearest fore-runner to the whole film noir genre.

The term film-noir didn't got handled until the '40's but this term would also really apply to this movie. It features all of the film-noir ingredients with its story as well as its atmosphere.

The movie isn't as smooth or expensive and good looking as an American movie but otherwise there is not much wrong with it. It features a typical crime story in which a Parisian gangster hides in Algeria. Combined with this get the usual factors such as romance and a tough main character, who of course also shows his humane side. It has a solid story that is typical for the genre and therefore for the regular genre viewer won't feature many surprises in it but it's for them also nice and interesting to see how this typical film-noir ingredients all got handled in a '30's, before the film-noir got even really truly invented.

But because the movie isn't American this of course also means that this movie is a 'different' one to watch. It features often some more interesting camera-angles and style of editing. It makes some of the sequences really great to look at. It also has a good and pleasant pace and is skillfully being directed by Julien Duvivier.

It's also a movie that got greatly carried by its principal actor Jean Gabin. He plays his character in the right way for the movie. He's a criminal but you still like him. It's a great character played by a great actor. Not all of the supporting actors are just as good however and act in a more typical kind of '30's over-the-top acting style, though the movie does feature some more great characters.

The movie got for some part shot in Algeria itself but some sequence are also sometimes painfully obvious studio-work. It's the foremost reason why the movie at times has a sort of cheap and less smooth look over it. The movie did became a success though and even managed to get an American release. This success inspired Hollywood to make one year later an American remake of this movie, called "Algiers", starring French born actor Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr.

A real fine late '30's French crime drama, which really can be seen as an early film-noir.

9/10

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"Pepe Le Moko" (1937) directed by Julien Duvivier - is a wonderful movie with the great performance from very young Jean Gabin. It just happened that I've seen several movies with him in the older age where he is serious, not very talkative man with the head full of grey hair and I like him in the later movies, too but it was so much fun to see him as Pepe - young, charming, dangerous, smart, brutal, irresistible, and so much in love with Paris that he'd lost forever. As much as I enjoyed the film as an early noir and crime, I think it is about the longing for home, about the nostalgia and as such it is even more interesting, deeper, poignant that just a noir. The celebrated film director Max Ophüls, who knew a lot about nostalgia and immigration said about Paris,

"It offered the shining wet boulevards under the street lights, breakfast in Monmartre with cognac in your glass, coffee and lukewarm brioche, gigolos and prostitutes at night. Everyone in the world has two fatherlands: his own and Paris."

I could not help thinking of his words when I watched the film. There is one scene that almost reduced me to tears - a middle-aged former chanteuse plays one of her records on a gramophone and sings along with her voice that has not changed at all even if she looks nothing like the picture on the wall from the days of her youth. The time may play very nasty jokes with a woman - she may get fat or skinny, lose her teeth and hair but her voice will stay as strong or tender, ringing or melodious as it was in the long gone days that stay forever in her memory. She sings about Paris and there are tears on her eyes and the scene simply can't leave any viewer indifferent. There is another scene - between Pepe and Gaby the girl from Paris with whom Pepe falls in love (Mireille Balin). They talk about Paris remembering different places which are dear to both of them, and in the end, they both named La Place Blanche where they both belong and not in Algiers's Casbah where Pepe is safe and he rules the world of criminals but can't forget the sound of Metro in Paris. When Pepe wants to tell Gaby that he loves her, he tells her that she reminds him of Metro in Paris...

I have not even mentioned how masterfully the film was shot by Julien Duvivier and how well it was acted, how fast it movies, and there are so many wonderful scenes that I have not mentioned...Great, great movie.