Somehow the 'greatness' of this movie has always eluded me. The last time I saw it on the big screen was about 5 or 6 years ago when a small art house devoted one day to a Jean Gabin trilogy and I felt strongly that the other two (Quai des Brumes and Le jour se Leve) left this one for dead. Three Jean Gabin films were released in 1938; this one, Quai des Brumes and Recif de corail, in which he was again teamed with Michel Morgan but even a screenplay by Charles Spaak couldn't do much for a hackneyed plot. The great Julien Carette on the other hand, who scores heavily here as Pecqueux, had nine films released that year and managed a better batting average than Gabin. It's hard to put one's finger on the problem; possibly it helps if you've read the book, part of a cycle of nine novels by Emile Zola but given the ratio of the reading public to the cinema going public that's not really good enough, an adaptation of even the largest selling novel should be accessible to non-readers. In my case an aversion to the Simone Simons of this world probably didn't help; the wide-eyed little-girl who expects hot-blooded men to roll over and play dead every time she looks cute will, I suppose, always be with us, witness Simon's natural successors Goldie Hawn and Vanessa Paradis but I was unable to detect even a tissue of sexual chemistry between Gabin and Simon though other viewers may disagree. Nor was I able to swallow easily Gabin's uncontrollable and inexplicable 'rages' - apparently the novel offers a 'hereditary' theory. On the other hand Gabin is always highly watchable, Fernand Ledoux, little known outside France, is an excellent actor and Julien Carrette is beyond praise. The film is now available in another trio format, a three-DVD package of Jean Renoir films and once again the other two, Le Crime de Monsiour Lange and La Grande Illusion, leave this one standing.
Review of La Bête Humaine
