Pépé le Moko (1937)

Directed by Julien Duvivier; produced by Raymond Hakim and Robert Hakim

Jewel thief Pépé le Moko (Jean Gabin) has been hiding from the police in the Casbah of Algiers for two years. Hiding is a relative term: the authorities know where he is and have made numerous attempts to capture him; indeed, Inspector Slimane (Lucas Gridoux) is on friendly terms with the criminal. But the Casbah is the home of the poor and the outcast, and its denizens protect Pépé. The crafty Slimane, however, has a plan to bring his quarry into ‘the town’, where he is vulnerable. It all depends on a woman, Gaby (Mireille Balin), a rich man’s mistress, visiting Algeria from France.

An evocative, thoughtful but exciting crime picture, Pépé le Moko benefits from excellent performances, direction and production values. Gabin makes the principal character multi-layered, yet, as much as we learn about Pépé from his actions and words, much is still hidden from the viewer, I think on purpose. There is no hint as to why he became a jewel thief, or why he chose the Casbah in Algiers as his hide-out, when he must have known other, similar refuges. His surname, probably a nom de guerre, refers to a native of Toulon, yet he was evidently raised in Paris. Like other legends, Pépé comes to us already formed.

The other actors are excellent, in particular Gridoux as the police detective. His Slimane shares a characteristic of many successful fictional sleuths: he plays the fool - at least to an extent - in order to lull his criminal opponents and professional rivals into complacence. He is tolerated in the Casbah because he is sympathetic to many of the denizens (for instance, looking the other way when an army deserter retreats there) and because he seems almost silly. Yet, all the while, he is watching, listening; his jester’s pose an open door to information.

The subordinate characters are both interesting and well-played, each with their own traits that are disparate without being artificial: Grand Père (Saturnin Fabre), the jewel expert; Pierrot (Gilbert-Gil), the youngster; Régis (Charpin), the informer; Carlos (Gabriel Gabrio), the strong-man. Ironically, Gaby, played by Balin, who is the catalyst of the plots (both the movie’s and Slimane’s), is barely known. It’s enough that she exists.

The script is good, too, though it deals only with the refugees in the Casbah, rather than the permanent residents. This is in keeping with the story, which is concerned with the outcasts who have come to live in this Alsatia. The dialogue creates the characters, as we learn of Pépé’s longing to return to France, particularly Paris. As his mistress, Inès (Line Noro), points out, the police want to arrest Pépé, but he is already under arrest, in the prison of the Casbah. Another aspect is that we must wonder whether Pépé and Gaby’s infatuation with each other is real or merely the manifestation of their longings: Pépé is a touch of danger and excitement in the woman’s rather ordinary life, while she represents escape and - above all, Paris - to the fugitive.

The direction is subdued but nonetheless significant. Firstly, it makes excellent use of the sets. Casbah originally referred to the citadel of a north African city, similar to kremlin meaning the citadel of a medieval Russian city; it then was attached to the town that grew up around the fortress, the ‘old city’. Pépé le Moko’s Casbah was built in a suburb of Paris, though viewers wouldn’t know it. The shadows and light, the lofty, blank walls, the recessed doors, all evoke claustrophobia; security and imprisonment at the same time. The only sunshine in the Casbah is on the terraced roofs.

When the camera turns to people, it adds to the script and the acting. It allows the viewer to share Slimane’s thoughts as he formulates his plan, and shows Pépé’s almost comical division of interest between the beauty of Gaby’s face and the beauty of her jewelry. On the other hand, it hits the heart obviously and effectively when it gives a few minutes to Tania (Fréhel), a middle aged woman who at one point plays a recording of her singing from her music-hall days, which she tearfully accompanies.

It is little wonder that Pépé le Moko made a star out of its leading man, and influenced other films including, of course, its American re-make, Algiers, and also Casablanca. Pépé le Moko is a classic for all the right reasons.

 

Larceny (1958)

Directed by George Sherman; produced by Leonard Goldstein

Flushed with a recent success, big-time confidence-men Rick Maxon (John Payne) and Silky Randall (Dan Duryea) embark on their next venture: the fleecing of a small city in California. They hope to achieve this by embroiling the daughter (Joan Caulfield) of the city-manager in a financial scandal. Things become unexpectedly complicated, however, when Maxon begins to develop feelings for the girl, while Silky’s girl, Tory (Shelley Winters), declares her feelings for Maxon.

Larceny is a pretty average crime film, as bland as its title. The story is predictable: as soon as Silky shows Maxon a photograph of his target, the audience knows that emotions will cause unforeseen difficulties – unforeseen by the crooks, not the viewers. Some interest is generated by the flighty and selfish actions of Winters’s character, but everything moves along according to schedule.

If the story is ordinary, the script provides some amusement, mainly in the tough-talk exchanged among Maxon, Silky and Tory. It’s not grade-A dialogue, but it gives a few good moments.

It’s the players, however, who provide the principal entertainment. Payne is a good lead in most of his movies, capable of shifting between villain (usually the kind heading for redemption) and hero (note the growing idealism of his lawyer in Miracle on 34th Street), even if his rôle here does not compel him to any great feats of acting.

Duryea is always dependable when cast as a heel; here, he is suitably oily, ready even to forego killing a hated enemy in order to turn a profit. Winters often adds a disadvantageous abrasion to a film, but in Larceny, she is the wild card that provides the few twists to the plot – though none of them turn it from its pre-destined course. Dan O’Herlihy, in only his third feature, plays a gentle and easy-going member of the criminal gang.

George Sherman was nothing if not prolific behind the camera, directing a large number of movies in the late 1930s and the ‘40s, half a dozen or more a year. None was really of note, however, except for a couple of John Wayne features, late in the director’s career. Westerns occupied most of Sherman’s time, but Larceny is probably typical of his style: workmanlike but unremarkable.

While it confirms that terms such as ‘grifter’ and ‘sting’ were really used in the 1940s – though whether by genuine con-men or not remains unknown - Larceny is neither very bad nor very good, and is stuck in the low-budget limbo of the time-filler.

Grand National Night (a.k.a. Wicked Wife) (1945)

Directed by Bob McNaught; produced by Phil C Samuel

Gerald Coates (Nigel Patrick) is a successful horse-breeder and trainer whose horse has just won the Grand National. He also has an unfaithful, alcoholic wife, Babs (Moira Lister). The night of the race, his relationship with his spouse reaches a climax, and she doesn’t make it to the morning alive. Coates tells a sympathetic friend, Joyce (Beatrice Campbell), that he killed Babs, and the two watch as the investigation, headed by a determined police detective (Michael Hordern), closes in on the guilty party.

A neat little crime film, quite English, Grand National Night benefits from a number of elements, starting with the acting. Patrick makes a sympathetic protagonist, and Lister a suitably off-putting victim. Both make their characters human and imperfect, while maintaining their principal traits. Patrick was a very popular leading man in British film of the day, though most of his pictures seem to fall into the B category, and, unfortunately, are largely forgotten today.

Campbell and Patrick have a natural affinity for each other; perhaps not surprising, as they were married in real-life, remaining so for nearly thirty years. They were in more than one movie together. With the exception of Hordern, the other cast-members are unknown now, and may have been then. But, as is the way with British character actors, they feel perfectly at home with their parts, adding considerably to the movie.

(Richard Graydon (credited as Richard Grayden), who plays the groom, Chandler, was a very minor actor at the time. He soon found his calling, though, becoming a movie stuntman and stunt-coordinator, apparently at the age of forty. His credits in this line include many James Bond films (from Connery’s era to Moore’s); Raiders of the Lost Ark; The Charge of the Light Brigade (in which he played Lord Bingham); The Duellists (he’s the Russian Harvey Keitel’s character shoots); Don’t Look Now; The Wild Geese; ffolkes, and 1989’s Batman. He dealt often with horses.)

The story comes from a stage-play, and the script, heavy with dialogue, shows this. The writing is good, with bright moments, usually depicting character or humour (such as an instance when someone asks why a character called ‘Buns’ Darling is called ‘Buns’. The response is that ‘we can’t very well call him Darling’…) There is an example of what might be considered a deus ex machine, but in fact there are earlier clues as to its use, and the finale is, I believe, perfectly legitimate in a crime-film, if not in a mystery.

The handling of the characters, especially the principal two, is very good. Gerald might have come across as indifferent to his wife’s problems, but it is made clear that he has given her opportunities for reconciliation previously, and she has not made the most of them. As well, there are hints that their lives together were more frivolous before the war, when he was captured and incarcerated in a Japanese prison camp. For her part, Babs wants her marriage to work, but it is clearly not the relationship it was in the past; she can neither cope with that, nor change her destructive habits arising from it.

The direction has a dichotomy to it: in some ways, it seems rather self-conscious, using close-ups and zooms rather too obviously, perhaps trying too hard for a Hitchcockian element. On the other hand, the movie’s stage origins are effectively broadened, and satisfactorily adapted to the big screen. The setting is largely a horse-breeding country estate; advantage is taken of this to have a number of riding scenes, or scenes placed beyond the confines of drawing rooms and entrance halls.

Grand National Night is a good if minor thriller, benefitting from capable performances, decent writing and a feel for the English countryside.

The Way to the Stars (a.k.a. Johnny in the Clouds) (1945)

Directed by Anthony Asquith; produced by Anatole de Grunewald

This is the story of a Royal Air Force station in the Second World War. It begins with the arrival of Pilot Officer Peter Penrose (John Mills), whose mere 15 hours flying in Bristol Blenheims grates on his superior, Squadron Leader David Archdale (Michael Redgrave). Eventually, however, the two become fast friends, Penrose matures into an experienced airman, and casualties take their toll. American flyers arrive, and missions become complicated. As the war goes on, drama, courage, hope, love, life and death make their changes.

Despite an opening sequence in which the station is bombed, The Way to the Stars (a title inspired undoubtedly by the RAF motto ‘Per ardua ad astra’) is more a movie about people in war, than about war, or about the war. It’s about what battle does to people, the bad things, and the good things that men and women manage to create in its midst despite its horrors. It might have been a stage-play (though it wasn’t), but the direction keeps the movie seeming like a movie.

That direction is deftly handled by Asquith, who had already made his mark by this time, and would go on to make it even stronger. This is one of his numerous collaborations with playwright Terence Rattigan - who wrote the screenplay, based on a story he co-wrote - and producer de Grunewald, who was Rattigan’s partner in writing the script.

That script weaves together personal and professional matters, demonstrating that while there may be differences between the two, they are inextricably connected, more so in wartime than in any other setting. This is seen especially in Penrose’s affection for a local girl, Iris (Renee Asherson), and his reluctance to take the relationship far. Penrose, Archdale and, later, the American Johnny Hollis (Douglass Montgomery), largely represent the service side of the story, while Iris, Toddy (Rosamund John) and Palmer (Stanley Holloway) are the civilians.

An interesting feature of the story is that none of the flyers is safe, whether they are major characters or minor, portrayed by established actors or neophytes. Cleverly, a highly-billed actor’s character is written out as killed, early on in the film, creating tension with the audience, who thus cannot be sure who will survive. This stress is particularly keen in the climax, featuring a badly damaged aeroplane attempting a desperate landing.

With the direction, writing and production in good hands, it would have been disastrous to have poor acting. This is no danger with the cast. This includes, apart from those mentioned, Basil Radford as the squadron’s non-flying recording officer, Felix Aylmer, Joyce Carey and David Tomlinson. Trevor Howard receives an ‘introducing’ credit – though he appeared, uncredited in The Way Ahead (as noted in that movie’s review on this blog last November), as does a 16 year old Jean Simmons. Simmons, unusually, doesn’t act but sings – delightfully - as an entertainer at a dance. So far as I can tell, her own voice is heard; she used it again in her much bigger rôle in Guys and Dolls.

All here is handled well. Rattigan, who served in the RAF during the war, captures the spirit of an air force base expertly, and uses the contemporary slang sparingly; enough to give the idea but not enough to confuse. De Grunewald’s experience in movies probably contributed to adapting any stage-like qualities of the script to film. Asquith’s direction keeps the story running smoothly, and Mills can’t be beat in showing his character’s evolution.

The Way to the Stars is another example of the excellent films produced in Britain during and soon after the Second World War.