Sedução Fatal

Were it not for the final 15 unbelievable minutes, I could have given this one 9, because the direction is assured, and the cinematography by Armand Thirard is wonderfully evocative, both of Les Halles and the Seine riverbank. Gabin and Blain playing two men suckered by a woman give excellent performances, Lucienne Bogaert as the woman's junkie mother gives another in a long line of vicious performances (how I've loved to hate her over the years), and the woman herself, Daniele Delorme, playing the crazed daughter of Gabin and Bogaert manages to hold her emotions in check until those final unbelievable minutes.

I grew up watching Duvivier's films: Carnet de bal, Pepe le moko and La Bandera. I saw in them a mastery of detail and a way of working with actors that pleased me very much. His work in the 50's doesn't equal what he did then.

Jean Gabin runs a restaurant in Paris. He manages his team. He has an adopted son, Gérard Blain. There's his mother, who runs a guinguette on the banks of the Marne. His ex-wife's daughter appears; his ex-wife is dead and his daughter doesn't know what to do, so she comes to see him in Paris. It's Danièle Delorme in the role of femme fatale, who returns with designs that we'll gradually come to understand thanks to the script, which moves forward slowly but surely, with points of no return at every turn. She's going to turn Jean Gabin's world upside down.

Danièle Delorme carries the film. Jean Gabin is quite credible as the restaurant owner. Gérard Blain is more monolithic. The life of Jean Gabin's character is turned upside down by all these women: his deceased ex-wife, his ex-wife's daughter, his mother. We could even say that they are all femmes fatales, such is their influence on the various characters. This is a film noir.

It's a good thing that the music is sparse and not overdone like many films of the period. This makes the film even stronger. A very pleasant surprise.

This opens in stunning fashion, with amazing panning shots of Paris' Les Halles in full and glorious flow in the 50s. Parisians must look now at London's Covent Garden development and wonder just what they did to their own central market. Back on screen, the fine sequences continue inside Jean Gabin's busy and successful restaurant, with great movement and sense of excitement. Both Gabin and Daniele Delorme are most effective as the narrative develops but it is a familiar tale and Delorme is only too convincing in her role to deceive just about everyone, seemingly for love but in reality, of course, for dosh. a surprising whipping scene and some scenes of real tension towards the end but this is french and overlong without too many surprises.

Jean Gabin runs a great restaurant right by Les Halles, the central market of Paris. He's bluff, hardworking, and has taken under his wing Gérard Blain, a poor medical student who works at the market, whom he feeds regularly and takes with him to visit his mother, who runs an inn in the country. Danièle Delorme comes to him from Marseilles. She is the daughter of his ex-wife, who has just died. Gabin takes her in and treats her as a daughter, but comes to have different feelings for her. There's just one problem. Her mother isn't dead. She's a drug addict staying at a cheap hotel nearby, and has a plan for profit.

It's a tale of betrayal directed by Julien Duvivier, and with Gabin in the lead, it's watching both at the top of their forms. One of the strengths of Gabin is his ability to convince you he is what he's playing on screen. As the chef and owner of the restaurant, he's always busy, cooking, dealing with the staff, tending to his customers, catching fish for a fry-up outside his mother's inn. Others get their moments, like Aimé Clariond as an old rake who keeps bringing young actresses to the restaurant, like a character out of a Clouzot film. In fact, it looks like Duvivier is trying to out-Clouzot Clouzot, and he does a fine job of it.

No, I can't believe that this film only get 3 users reviews, 419 voters, and not even one topic on its message board! It is one of the four immortal masterpieces —along with "Pépé le Moko", "La fin du jour" and "Panique"— of an immortal master, Julien Duvivier.

All in there is at the very top (and even the over-the-top is at the top!).

A clockwork scenario, the sharp dialogues, a cinematography like they knew how to make. And the best own's performances for Jean Gabin, Danièle Delorme, Lucienne Bogaert.

See it! Watch Duvivier's movies! Vive le cinéma!

Didier_fort at hotmail.com