Port of Shadows (1938)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Port of Shadows (1938) – M. Carné

Director Marcel Carné and writer Jacques Prévert are known for their films made during and just before WWII in a style known as “poetic realism”.  Along with Le Jour Se Lève (Daybreak, 1939), Le Quai Des Brumes (Port of Shadows) is typically seen as a part of a doom-laden zeitgeist that infected France before the Nazis invaded.  Les Visiteurs du Soir (The Devil’s Envoys, 1942) and Les Enfants Du Paradis (Children of Paradise, 1945, their masterpiece) were made during the Occupation.  And then the zeitgeist for poetic realism was over.  But Port of Shadows and Daybreak, both starring tough guy Jean Gabin, capture the mood, with their doomed love – or love between doomed people – depicted with poetic words and poetic images.  Here, Gabin plays a soldier (also Jean) who has deserted the army and we first see him coolly hitchhiking to Le Havre, a port city on the English Channel.  Seeking refuge, he follows a friendly drunk to an isolated shack where other loners congregate under the welcoming roof of “Panama” (Édouard Delmont).  There he meets Nelly (Michèle Morgan) who is hiding from her (possibly evil) guardian, Zabel (Michel Simon), and a trio of gangsters led by Lucien (Pierre Brasseur) who are also after Zabel (who has something to do with a missing man).  It is love at first sight for Jean and Nelly, but we know that Jean seeks to escape France on a ship bound for Venezuela.  Moreover, he has accepted civilian clothes from a painter who leaves them as he swims out to commit suicide, a bad omen if ever there were one.  When he defends Nelly by slapping Lucien (an embarrassment more than anything else), we see the gears of the plot start to grind inexorably toward Jean’s doom.  He knows it and Nelly knows it but still they love each other and still he gets on board the ship to depart.  But a temporary separation instilled with hope is not to be.  Such is the plot but it is really the dialogue (Prévert), the stylized soundstage production design (Alexandre Trauner), the gauzy foggy cinematography (Eugen Schüfftan), and the noir hero acting (Gabin) that seal the deal (all went on to great things).  The melancholy beauty of it all cannot help but bewitch you. 

Hotel Du Nord (1938)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Hotel Du Nord (1938) – M. Carné

Fatalistic and willing to look into the void, Marcel Carné’s poetic realist film begins with a failed double suicide pact and moves forward from there, deciding eventually that there is but one true love that we are destined to find.  Although perhaps this destiny is not for everyone, because Louis Jouvet’s mysterious ex-gangster winds up with no one (accepting an avoidable death instead).  Arletty (playing a prostitute more frankly than Hollywood would allow) manages to struggle along making the best of her lot, pragmatically, losing Jouvet but settling for comic everyman Bertrand Blier instead.  These are just a few of the characters and stories that populate the Hotel Du Nord, a low rent bar/hotel that feels like a real community albeit in an art-directed Paris created on a sound-stage with two dimensional backdrops (the poetic atmosphere that envelops the kernel of realness in the events and characters).  On the eve of WWII (not even hinted at), an uncomfortable sense of the inescapable hangs ominously over the film (the sorrow and the pity were yet to come, particularly for Arletty).  But at a deeper level, the yin and yang of existentialism and fatalism hold the viewer transfixed in the balance.   Carné went on to make his masterpiece Les Enfants du Paradis a few years later under the auspices of the Vichy government.

  

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – M. Curtiz

Here we have brave feats of derring-do by Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) and his band of merry men (including Alan Hale as Little John and Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck).  Their bravery is for a good cause: protecting the poor Saxons from wicked Prince John (Claude Rains) and Sir Guy of Gisborne (Basil Rathbone).  And even though eyes are being poked out and ears cut off by the bad guys, this is still exhilarating and fun, as Robin’s rebelliousness is charismatic and cheeky rather than angry.  Of course, the good guys do not always come out on top, but Maid Marian (played by Flynn’s usual love interest, Olivia de Havilland) is on hand inside the castle to help them escape.  Director Michael Curtiz (stepping in after William Keighley was let go) keeps things moving at a good clip, such that one fabled episode after another comes rollicking through.  Both the Technicolor and the frequent swordplay are eye-popping as well and you really cannot go wrong if you are looking adventuresome thrills.  Hollywood at its best.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Lady Vanishes (1938) -- A. Hitchcock

I'd say this is Hitchcock's masterpiece from the British period -- a comic spy story that contains some clear warnings about the growing tensions in Europe and British diffidence toward them. Margaret Lockwood convinces Michael Redgrave to help her search for Dame May Whitty, a "whimsical" old governess who has gone missing on the train. Paul Lukas is the charming but possibly obfuscating brain specialist who helps them out. The screenplay manages to click along nicely, building suspense and providing the "answer" in a way that still leads to an exciting climax. Hitch's sly sense of humor is most definitely on display.