Le jour se lève

That was one of the last French masterpieces of the thirties just before the war.Marcel Carné was accused of pessimism and the movie was quickly forbidden by the military censorship that used to say in 1940:"if we've lost the war,blame it on "Quai des Brumes""(Carné's precedent movie.The director answered:"you do not blame a barometer for the storm"). "Le jour se lève " is,if it's possible,darker than its predecessor. From the very beginning,the hero,a good guy (Gabin) is doomed,his fate is already sealed,because the tragedy has already happened .That's why the movie is a long flashback.The memories are brought back on the screen with an astounding virtuosity by some elements of the set (the teddy bear for instance).Only three main characters outside that of Gabin,the evil one (Berry who was to play the devil in "les visiteurs du soir "1942),the lucid one (Arletty) and the ambiguous one (Jacqueline Laurent).The latter provides

the only flaw of the movie:Laurent acts Françoise as the innocent pure girl,however Carné leaves no doubt about her relations with Berry. A remake was made by Anatole Litvak with Henry Fonda ,Barbara Bel Geddes and Ann Dvorak (who must have been studying Arletty's acting for a long while),called "the long night" with an absurd happy end. Needless to say,it's the French Carné movie that you've got to see!