Two years before Preminger's "the man with the golden arm", it is even more convincing as far as the addiction is concerned ;historically ,it was the first French film dealing with the hell of addiction ....
A pianist who dreams of writing a symphony,works as a pianist in an brasserie band .He gets run over by a car and in the hospital ,he is given doses of morphine to ease the pain; an ex-lover comes to visit him and decides to take revenge on that man who walked out on her and married another woman. After he left the hospital, she gives him doses of drug and soon,he's not able to do without it anymore .He conceals his addiction from his wife but soon she discovers the horrible truth.
Made by Yves Ciampi, a former doctor turned director, the film ,apart from some melodrama elements ( Gerard Landry's character who wants the wife to elope with him) , is a precise documentary about the addiction, the withdrawal symptoms when the junkie goes cold turkey, the helpless fight of the wife : when he's seems to be all right ,it's not good news : it' a relapse ,and the wife knows better after a while .
Uncompromising , devoid of sentimentality and self-pitying , with no happy end (the doctor only says that science can still win) , this movie was so ahead of its time it's still impressive today ;Daniel Gélin is extraordinary in his part of this wreck ,who feverishly hides his stuff ,tries to fool his wife; doubled up with pain on his hospital bed, he must have scared the fifties audience who did not come en masse .
The film issues a warning before the movie about the stupefacients before the cast and credits; it is still relevant today.
