La belle équipe

One for nostalgia buffs. One of a handful of movies that epitomise French cinema in the thirties. Gabin, Charles Vanel and Viviane Romance proved durable, indeed, Romance was something of a French Jeanne Crain/Linda Darnell in the forties while Vanel scored heavily in La Salaire du Peur and Les Diaboliques. Gabin, of course, proved most durable and iconic; this was made around the time of Pepe Le Moko and still to come were Quai des Brumes, Le jour se leve, and then the great post-war stuff, Touchez pas au grisbi, Le Chat, La Traversee de Paris,etc. First and last this is a Depression movie, made and released in the heart of the international slump. But it's also about comaraderie, how strong it is yet how fragile. When they don't have change of a match the 5 friends ARE strong but once they hit the numbers on the National Lottery it all begins to crumble from the inside. It's a curious mixture of the lyrical - the pastoral scenes along the Marne that would be echoed in Casque d'Or, the sentimental songs, and Gabin in full throat is something to hear - and the pragmatic - money corrupts and frailty, thy name is woman - but against the odds it works. Duvivier doesn't get too much attention today yet he remains a key player in French cinema.

I am adding to this commentary in June 2016 to point out to any fans of this film that, almost unbelievably after waiting such a long time, it is now actually available in France (since June 1st) on Blu-ray and DVD. This is an issue by Pathé, together with certain others of Duvivier's films and notably the (in)famous "Voici Le Temps Des Assassins". The set comprises a Blu-ray (Zones A B C) plus a DVD (Zone 2 - Europe Only), the film has been remastered and is with French Language Audio AND a choice of French or English Subtitles). This should bring a lot of pleasure to a lot of people who have been awaiting this reissue for many years : shot in 1936 on the Banks of The Marne river some 5 miles from Paris, La Belle Equipe constituted a milestone in French Cinema. Coinciding with the advent of the " Front Populaire ", the film is today remembered for the scenes in the guinguette and the beautiful valse musette " Quand on s'promène au bord de l'eau " sung by actor Jean Gabin and accompanied by roving accordionist Albert Deprince. The film is about a group of factory workers who win the lottery and club together to construct a guingette ( dance hall ) on the banks of the Marne between Nogent and Joinville. All starts well but quarrels develop and women get in the way ! There are in fact two endings, a happy one reluctantly made by director Duvivier to please the public,and a pessimistic one which was the director's own personal choice. For some strange reason the pessimistic ending is always subtitled in German !!! The new issue of the film includes both the pessimistic and the optimistic endings.You may visit today by riverboat the area where the film was shot and until a few years ago could see the actual remains of the "guinguette" built specially for the film !!

Absolute classic masterpiece. Julien Duvivier's usual thematic (everyone's bad) is here, but stronger and faster. I have seen the two ends - optimist (not very interesting) and pessimist (very hard to find, with german undertitle, but it was the one that Duvivier wants) and the second one broke all my hopes in human race. You must absolutely find the second one, a message from an old time when french cinema was the best in the world.

But its well done, written, played. Good story line. But 75 years is a long time.

When a movie has practically no plot, as is the case for "La Belle Equipe", you at least hope/expect that character development will be its strong suit. But most of the characters here are hollow, with only Jean Gabin standing out (he commands the screen more than any other cast member, with only Viviane Romance giving him any competition). There are hardly any visual innovations as well - like there were in an earlier Julien Duvivier film ("Moon Over Morocco") which also revolved around 5 male friends. In one word, skippable. ** out of 4.