La vierge du Rhin

Jean Gabin wangles a place on a barge headed for Strassburg. He's in a hurry to get there. It's soon revealed that he's out for revenge. He's spent more than a dozen years in POW camps and hospitals, betrayed by his "widow", Elina Labourdette, who married her lover, Renaud Mary. They've spent almost a decade and a half sacking the company Gabin had built, so he buys a gun....

There are a few loose threads hanging in this movie, apparently cut down from the novel it's based on; neither is it a great film. Still, it's got Gabin, some good location shooting in Strassburg, a nice puzzle, some pretty women to look at, and for a change, some police officers who aren't complete dopes. Director Gilles Grangier directed Gabin in a baker's dozen movies, none of them classics, but all of them solid programmers, and this is a good way to spend eighty minutes of your time if you're not looking for something deep. I figured out the puzzle about ten minutes before they gave the answer, which means it was fairly done.... especially as at the time it wasn't clear there was a puzzle to figure out.

The well -known story of the soldier who was killed during the war (WW2) and whose wife took control of his (shipping ) company with a new husband .Coup de Théâtre!The hubby (Gabin) is alive and well and sailing back home on the Rhine.As the missus and her new love -a sinister-looking coward at that!- are not prepared to accept it,they try to get rid of the intruder.

The story is more whodunit than film noir.The second husband is killed and Gabin and his wife become suspects.The ex-soldier falls in love with a gorgeous girl (Nadia Grey) who helps him .

The detective plot is mildly entertaining,but the best is Grangier's depiction of life on the barges ,and a good use of the Rhine valley .