Perhaps the only movie starring chanteur Tino Rossi which is not a complete vehicle for him ; the songs are ok for these whose taste runs that way,the others may regret that the lyrics were not written by Prévert .
Pierre Billon was an estimable director ,too often unfairly forgotten ; when he was given good material he was able to make interesting works ("Vautrin" " L'homme au chapeau rond" "Ruy Blas " "Agnès de Rien " ): here the dialogue was written by Jacques Prévert ,and his lines are on a much higher level than the average Rossi film ; bitter meditations on love, on beauty and ugliness,on life; besides the cast is excellent and features Pierre Brasseur,Charles Vanel ,Micheline Presles , who easily outclass the principal .Even Jacques Prévert's brother, Pierre , appears as the harbor's idiot .
Borrowing from Marcel Pagnol (the atmosphere of the café, the joie de vivre ) ,from Marcel Carné (Pierre Brasseur's ambiguous character who seduces the heroine with his islands in the sun ,a recurrent feature of the pre-WW 2 French cinema ) and from Julien Duvivier (the offbeat blackness of the scenes in the mas -Camargue farm -); in spite of Rossi's wooden acting and of the triteness of the love story ,the movie survives ; besides the twillight scenes on the Camargue swamp are admirably filmed by Louis Page.
Based on a short story by Pierre Galante who would later marry (and divorce) the great Olivia De Havilland.
