Le drapeau noir flotte sur la marmite

That's a real rare gem which I talk about, although it's a Michel Audiard's film starring Jean Gabin. Never released in VHS or DVD, never. I don't believe it. Maybe a copyright issue, unexplained and so complicated too. Anyway, it is available on You Tube for those among you who could be interested. It's a typical French and especially Audiard story here. The tale of a man - Jacques Marin, a word that in french means sailor !!! - who dreams to sail over the seven seas aboard a ship, and not a cruiser, nor a cargo. And because he knows nothing about this, he asks his uncle, played by Gabin, to help him achieving his dream. And in this story you also have a young kid who dreams of adventure and long journeys aboard ships. And the kid meets Gabin who impersonates an old adventurer, a very experienced sailor. Whom he is absolutely not. This kid who makes the old man his god, the old man who is nothing at all, who has never been what he pretends to be for the kid. And those sequences between the young kid with his dreams and the old man lost in his unachieved ones, are so poignant, moving. A film that makes you feel great emotions. Gabin is here at his peak. No one else but him could have played this character. No one. Such a shame this had never been released in DVD. Only aired, thirty years ago. A role for Gabin which seems to be not so far from the one he had in UN SINGE EN HIVER; an old timer, speaking of his past life of adventure and far exotic countries.

This film is based on a novel "Il était un petit navire" written by René Fallet who participated in the film for the adaptation.René Fallet was son of a railroadworker and was also born in Villeneuve, this very important place for the French railway company.This film has a very nice cast: Jean Gabin (who plays the uncle Victor Ploumaz, who says that he is a great adventurer of the seas),Ginette Leclerc, Jean Carmet, Jacques Marin and Claude Piéplu among others. TS. René Fallet has participated in various cinematographic adaptations of his book and I recommand to see "La soupe aux choux" and "Le beaujolais nouveau est arrivé"