Escravas do Amor

Simone SIGNORET as "Diddi from Antwerp"

Poetic realism is something like France's Black Series: dark noir atmosphere, stories of people on the fringes of society. Yves ALLEGRET was certainly not the most important director in this genre, but his films are definitely worth seeing. Especially when the later OSCAR winner Simone SIGNORET can be seen in it.

Dédée (Simone SIGNORET) ended up in Antwerp with her brutal pimp boyfriend Marcel DALIO. There you are suffering a bit from competition with the increasingly successful port of Hamburg. The curb swallow falls in love with an Italian captain (Marcello PAGLIERO) and gains hope for a better life. Bernard BLIER and Jane MANKEN can also be seen in other roles.

The film impresses with its atmosphere and also with its greater freedom compared to other films from the time. French films are simply more sensual than any other. And that's why they are rightly so popular. In addition to Simone SIGNORET, Marcello PAGLIERO in particular plays very well. As an actor he is known from the classic "Roma - Citta aperta", and as a screenwriter he was nominated for an OSCAR together with Klaus MANN and Federico FELLINI (and two others) for "PAISA".

This film, which is well worth seeing, will certainly be available in the ARTE media library for some time to come.

Some people make a big issue about this movie having been released in 1948. Apparently this was too late, it should have been 1938... as if that made any difference in this century.

At the time, the logic goes, poetic realism was no longer a thing, it was outdated, passé, old-fashioned. Well I contend that a good movie remains a good movie, in or out of fashion. Even if it was released yesterday, so even more so if it's as old as your granny.

For a start, as everyone acknowledges,, there's Simone Signoret. Not only (very) beautiful, but a powerful, tragic figure that fills the screen. As soon as you see her, you know you can expect... OK no spoilers.

Then there's a strong, memorable story. This is an important ingredient in poetic realism, as it gives weight to the atmospheric sets. That is part of why Le Jour se Lève or Liliom are so good. Dédée d'Anvers is in that class. People have compared it unfavourably with Quai des Brumes. Well I find that, for all its spender, that movie has a somewhat meandering, confused story that makes you wonder what all the atmosphere is about.

This was a contender for the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion – facing such stiff competitors as THE FALLEN IDOL, David Lean's OLIVER TWIST, THE RED SHOES, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and the eventual winner, Laurence Olivier's HAMLET. Incidentally, leading lady Simone Signoret and director Allegret were husband and wife at the time of shooting, but they divorced the following year.

On the surface, the film does feel suspiciously like an inferior rehash of Marcel Carne's PORT OF SHADOWS (1938) – not just its harbor setting and noir-ish ambiance, but the characterizations themselves: with Signoret neatly replacing Michele Morgan, Italian writer-turned-director-and-actor Marcello Pagliero (he starred in Roberto Rossellini's ROME, OPEN CITY [1945] and later directed the similarly-titled ROMA, CITTA' LIBERA [1946]) instead of Jean Gabin, Bernard Blier standing in for Michel Simon, and Marcel Dalio essaying the role of the cowardly crook portrayed by Pierre Brasseur in the earlier film! Even so, the four leads are all excellent in their respective roles: Signoret, especially, has a star-making turn as the optimistic bar hostess/streetwalker and Dalio is deliciously slimy as her wimpish pimp who is not above beating her to get the girl to extort more money from her clients, which he then squanders on his infallibly doomed schemes.

The film is very well done in all departments (an unexpected highlight is a brutal street scuffle early on, not to mention the vicious ending) and makes one look forward to eventually sampling Allegret's other well-regarded efforts – UNE SI JOLIE PETITE PLAGE (1949), MANEGES (1950; also with Signoret and Blier, which I have on VHS but only in French) and THE PROUD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1953). Ultimately, DEDEE D' ANVERS has the disadvantage of being sort of stuck in the middle between two superior movies on a similar theme – the afore-mentioned PORT OF SHADOWS and Jacques Becker's CASQUE D'OR (1952; also starring Signoret).

While one has to be grateful to Italian TV channels for the loyalty they show towards French cinema in the way they keep pumping them out throughout their daily schedules, I have to complain about the dire state of the print quality on evidence here: the video is hazy in the extreme and is saddled besides with a tagged-on, anachronistically modernistic soundtrack!

The story is pretty simple: there is a bar in the grimy, foggy port of Antwerp, owned by M. Rene (Bernard Blier). A hooker named Dedee (Signoret) and her pimp Marco (Dalio) work there, she as a dancer and he as the doorman. An Italian ship's captain (Pagliero) enters Dedee's life one night, and she begins to shape plans for getting out of "the life." Marco can't bear the idea of losing face with his associates--a pimp has to protect his turf--so he goes after Francesco with a gun...

There is an ease of storytelling and work with actors that shouldn't blind us to the reality that Allegret is working in a genre--poetic realism--that is worn out in the late Forties. Jacques Sigurd wrote seven scripts for Allegret, but he was never the equal of Jacques Prevert, either in creating memorable characters or great lines. The port setting and cast of desperate dreamers had been used before in Carne's Quai des brumes, with the exception of the shady life of Signoret's character, quite a change from Michele Morgan's purity.

The actors are all fine. Jane Marken and Dalio bring out the emotions of their characters--lively, not too smart, trusting and suspicious by turns. Marcel Pagliero is sturdy, quiet and trustworthy; he's at ease in front of the camera, the way Sergio Castellitto is today (he even looks a lot like Castellitto). Bernard Blier is sometimes sympathetic, sometimes contemptuous with his employees--it should be noted that Marco is a handful for even the strongest boss. This was Signoret's fifteenth film, and it finally launched her career. Her Dedee is beautiful, in that sculptural way she had, lively, smart and moving. She provides a good account of the making of the film in her autobiography, Nostalgia Isn't What It Used to Be.

This film made Simone Signoret an important actress, and it is a deeply depressing film set in Antwerp mainly in a bar where prostitutes are available. Signoret is one of them, and the film concentrates on her life there and her love for an Italian captain of a ship that is in the harbour. Her pimp does not like this and this is when things turn nasty. The ending is especially so and the film ends on a bleak note. Some place it in the genre of French Poetic Realism which usually means murky sets, sullen faces and criminality. Usually these films involved Jean Gabin and personally I find them drab and intensely tedious. This genre fortunately faded out with the arrival of the Nouvelle Vague, another nebulous French definition for a disparate set of directors. But to return to this film. Yves Allegret was Signoret's husband at the time, and with this film and the appallingly depressing ' Maneges ' made her a very successful actor. I find his direction in both films to be dour, solid and worst of all boring. Both films seemed to set a pattern in Signoret's career. Despite her beauty I find her a passive actor, open to despair which sourly contorted her features. Only in ' Casque D'Or ' ( Golden Marie ) directed by Jacques Becker does she consistently glow, but again the ending has to be fatalistic and down beat. This repetition of fateful endings continued with ' The Witches of Salem ', ' Therese Raquin ' and ' Room at the Top ' made in the UK. Happiness on film was always brief for her and to repeat the word passive she follows the repetition as if it is a cinematic necessity. I find this sad and all of the above films should be avoided by the depressed. To lighten this darkness I must mention how superb she was in Ophuls ' La Ronde ' beginning and ending it with wit and brave cynicism. I believe others when they say she was a great actor, and no doubt she was but I have rarely responded to her. Only in a much later film ' Ship of Fools ' did I get a glimpse of her magic, but there again she was destined for cinematic defeat. I have forgotten ' The Fiends ' made by Clouzot and for me it is the apotheosis of her tendency to gravitate towards fatality. In ' Dedee d'Anvers ' she is beginning the route, and I have avoided it for years. Taking the plunge I surfaced longing to return to Jacques Demy and Eric Rohmer and their bitter sweet tales. As a woman Signoret held high principles and I respect her enormously, who in life I am sure never accepted defeat. I just wish she had taken a less dark path on film.