The film career of Jean Gabin - he had worked successfully in the theatre for nine years prior to his first film role - falls neatly into several sections; the early years as he gradually mastered the medium, the great years leading up to World War 2 that saw him become the prime male box office attraction in France, the early forties, including two films in Hollywood, and the non-too successful return to French screens, the come-back cycle lasting roughly a decade from 1954 and the 'elder statesman' years. He achieved stardom in a succession of 'working-man' roles - even if playing a gangster as in Pepe Le Moko the gangster was working-class but beginning with his great 'come-back' role in Toucez-pas au grisbi he began to acquire a patina of elegance slipping back only occasionally to his working-class roots. This was the second film in a row in which he played a trucker albeit the first time (Gas-Oil) was a more conventional thriller whereas Des gens sans importance harks back to the poetic realism of Quai des brumes and Le Jour se leve. Henri Verneuil, an unfairly neglected director infuses the film with melancholy and opens and closes symmetrically on a long-shot of a truck stop which is obliterated totally by Gabin's rig which first pulls up and then, two hours later, pulls away. This is excellent shorthand for showing succinctly the role that trucks and truck stops pay in the life of the Gabin character. In the manner of Le Jour se leve Gabin then begins to muse on the events of the last two years, allowing us to glimpse his empty life despite the wife and children he barely sees in between long hauls; the doomed affair he enters into with a waitress at the truck stop who is young enough to be his daughter and the ultimate tragedy when she dies via the after effects of an abortion. Significantly even at the height of their affair neither Gabin nor the girl is shown to be really happy. This is a fine film and by no means as downbeat as I have suggested and is well worth seeking out.
Review of Des gens sans importance
