La rose de la mer

A sailor says :"it will be a bad voyage". "Eight of hearts and Nine of spades" says another one "I don't see any good coming out of it".

" la Rose des Mers" is an old ship whose two owners are a wicked sinister-looking uncle and his loyal nephew.The old captain claims he carries spare parts of agricultural machines :his hold is actually full of bricks;he wants to sink his ship and to cash the insurance premium.All his crew (a crew of "pirates" the nephew dixit)knows about it but one ,an honest father.When the nephew sees through the trick,he tries to rebel but his uncle starts to make threats.There's not enough room on the lifeboat so...

The movie begins as a true film noir but when a stowaway is discovered ,it turns melodramatic.However the screenplay remains absorbing ,and the two leads are excellent:

Fernand Ledoux finds in "La Rose de La Mer" one of his rare villain roles.Matching him every step of the voyage,is Roger Pigaut's Jerome,an idealist who prefers a baby's smile to 90 kg of "rotten meat".Jerome is the hero in the noblest sense of the term.

The lines even includes black humor: "A wreckage with a drowned person,it's a real wreckage!"

Some Baroncelli's works deserve to be watched: "la Duchesse de Langeais" "Les Mysteres de Paris" and this "Rose de la Mer " are part of them.

Like this? try this....

"Ghost ship" Mark Robson/Val Lewton

"la rose de la mer" is an interesting adventure cargo movie, the two parents owning this cargo are totally opposite and fight : the uncle Fernand Ledoux is the bad man captain with his pirate team, and his nephew Roger Pigaut is the determined honest nephew whose choice shows his determined courage, alone against eveybody. What a true character. And lot of punch lines in the decisions to make. And an ultimate surprise in this trip that decides the hero Pigaut, still honest till the end.

Like this? See "The decks ran red" directed by Andrew L Stone with James Mason, Boroderick Crawford ("the actor who can only show anger", as says Marc !!!), sexy Dorothy Dandridge and Stuart Whitman. Gripping.