La grande fiamma

Reunion in France (1942)

First important fact: this movie, about the first year of WWII when Hitler took over France, was released a month before "Casablanca." It does not compare in most ways with the drama, the humor, the writing, the music, the velocity, and the legendary actors of the more famous movie. But it is a very good movie with an interesting early pro-American, pro-French message. Joan Crawford crackles as much as she can in a topsy turvy role, going from spoiled and frivolous rich woman Michele de la Becque to (briefly) a refugee to, finally, an ordinary woman fighting with all her heart for France.

There are two male actors with important roles and they couldn't be more different. One is Michele's lover and fiancé, played with a cultured perfection by Philip Dorn, a Dutch actor who pulls off the pan-Euro, mostly French aristocrat and businessman well. Opposite him in every way is the homey, tough, humble American who shows up halfway through the film, John Wayne. I don't know if this really makes sense in the film, but I can see it on paper, since Wayne played a non-cowboy merchant seaman in the terrific John Ford film which prefigures this one in some ways, "The Long Voyage Home." He doesn't seem as wily and smart as a fugitive from the Nazis would have to be, behind the lines in occupied Paris, but he at least plays the role of an ordinary American ready to help the French, and this is the political message throughout.

In fact, the movie borders on a brilliant propaganda device, putting message ahead of plot now and then, just perceptibly. Crawford is so good even her speeches make a convincing case, and I'm assuming American audiences cheered her on by December of 1942 when it was released (on Christmas day). The scenes of the Germans taking over Paris are always horrifying, and they are again here. There is even a deliberate homage to Soviet director Eisenstein when a baby carriage runs off after the mother is killed by gunfire.

But back to "Casablanca." It's an interesting problem to solve, feeding the American audience worried about the war and about U.S. involvement. Because Hollywood was both a symptom of public opinion and a shaper of it, and these are two rather different kinds of films with very similar messages. Director Jules Dassin, who is not French but American, had just started making films in 1941, and there is a sense of expertise at the expense of intuitive magic. "Reunion in France" is strong, smart, and convincing. But it doesn't sizzle or build the aura of the time like it could. And yet, in its defense, it has no perspective at all on the events, since it was made while they were unfolding, even before they were unfolding since it has to anticipate to some extent how the film will settle six months after being written and shot. Watch it. It's really good.

Reunion in France finds Joan Crawford as an upper class French woman happily engaged to industrialist Philip Dorn and confident that the French army will defend the Maginot Line and the Germans will be defeated once they make a move west. Of course history and the film both tell us it didn't work out that way.

When she arrives back in Paris because she's away in the country when the surrender happens, she finds that the Germans have taken over her house to use as office space, but they've permitted her to occupy one room on the ground level with its own entrance to the street.

That's a minor inconvenience compared to when she learns that her fiancé is collaborating with the Nazis.

Around that time a young flier with the RAF Eagle Squadron, John Wayne, accosts her in the street and gets her to take him in. He's escaped from Nazi custody and looking to get back to Great Britain.

This is a minor film in the credits of both John Wayne and Joan Crawford in there one and only film together. Crawford was being slowly eased out at MGM and she knew it. Still she was a professional if nothing else and gives the role her best. The part called for her to look chic and those Adrian gowns were in play again.

John Wayne doesn't even get into the film until almost 40 minutes into the story. When he does get in, even though he makes a play for Crawford, the Duke has some real problems as Crawford in order to help him has to play up to Dorn and his Nazi friends. It's not the John Wayne we're used to because it really isn't his film.

There's been some criticism by other reviewers that Crawford doesn't sound French. Then again neither does anyone else in the film. The rest of the cast. The cast in fact has a variety of European and American accents, Frenchmen weren't in good supply at that point in Hollywood, either that or they were otherwise committed. Surely Crawford was no more French sounding than Humphrey Bogart in Passage to Marseille.

Albert Basserman is the commanding general in Paris and the fellow who Dorn cultivates. John Carradine may be the best one in the film as the Gestapo agent who knows there's something fishy with Crawford, but can't quite prove it.

Both the Duke and Joan Crawford had better days ahead of them. Still the film is a curiosity and worth a look.

Crawford is excellent as a rich French bitch who discovers her patriotism and a slightly softer side to her character when Hitler invades France. John Wayne is the American flyer she gets involved with. The movie is "Reunion in France", a very early Jules Dassin, and it's a good one even if it does fall short of classic status. The plot involves Crawford's suspicions that her fiancée Philip Dorn is a Nazi collaborator, while at the same time helping Wayne escape from the Gestapo and Dassin rings a good deal of suspense from it. The first-rate supporting cast includes John Carradine, Albert Basserman, Henry Daniel, Reginald Owen and in a small and uncredited part of a salesgirl, an up-and-coming starlet called Ava Gardener.

I found this film on TCM one day recently, and decided to check it out mostly because it was made during the war and had John Wayne in the cast. I'm not much of a Joan Crawford fan, but she did a very good job in this story of patriotism during German occupation of France. The lead actor was very handsome and hard to figure out until later in the movie. Wayne was not the star of the movie, and did a very good acting job as the RAF American volunteer downed pilot. While the story seems implausible, most war films do. Of course there were a lot of heroic people in WW II, on all sides, and in the 'occupied' countries such as France. The fact that the Germans were not completely one dimensional gave some depth to the movie. As any German from that time will tell you, not all the German people were in lock step with the regime, but they had to stay alive. Many fought on several levels, many of those we will never hear of. I do think the caricature of the Gestapo was perhaps a little cartoon like in the movie, and John Carradine epitomizes that caricature. From what I have read over the years, the Gestapo was a very dangerous organization and usually left nothing to chance. I love the twists and turns in the movie, and will not spoil it for others. Suffice it to say I recommend this movie for its storyline, and its acting. A great wartime film in my book.

John Wayne plays an American airforce pilot shot down over war-torn France, taken in by the enchanting Joan Crawford who conceals his identity posing him as her chauffeur until she can arrange for his passage to safety. Her boyfriend however appears to be conspiring with the Boche, and so an elaborate plan is devised to spirit both Wayne and Crawford (who have formed a romantic connection) out of Paris and to Lisbon with the aid of resistance fighters and British intelligence.

Great performances showcases Crawford's acting talents and dark beauty, outshining the burly exterior of Wayne (which it must be said, is more subdued than usual) while John Carradine has a key supporting role as an unwelcome Gestapo agent later in the film. If you look carefully, you'll also spot Ava Gardner in a small role as a sales girl.

While there's some jingoist sentiments to this film (made during WWII, the fade-out shot has the word "courage" beamed across the screen), there's sufficient dramatic plot twists and thrills to entertain for the lengthy duration. I personally found the movie to be a watchable B-grade war intrigue, with an almost film noir characteristic in Crawford's enigmatic heroine.