TUESDAY, NOV 20, 2018GABIN IN THE FIFTIES, CONTINUED...  

HOUSE ON THE WATERFRONT / PORT DU DESIR  7:00

There is no way that a FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT festival is going to play without Jean Gabin! And so, on closing night, we bring you two intriguingly different-as-can-be 1950s examples of the One and Only's effortlessly permanent appeal.

In his only collaboration with director Edmond T. Gréville, Gabin also has his only team-up with his erstwhile replacement Henri Vidal, in what might be the first example of what some critics call "film soleil"—dark tales that proceed in a paradoxical abundance of sunlight. Gabin is a shrewd sea captain whose career has drifted into salvage work in and around Marseille; but he stumbles into a missing person case and discovers a nasty, intricate cover-up that is further jeopardized when the sister of the missing girl (the astonishingly androgynous Andrée Debar) starts asking questions. Gabin enlists scuba pro/ladies' man Vidal to find the answers that are buried at sea. Slow-burning tension at its best!

(1955, 94min) Directed by Edmond T. Gréville. Screenplay by Jacques Viot. Photographed by Henri Alekan. Music by Joseph Kosma. With Jean Gabin, Andrée Debar, Henri Vidal, Edith Georges, Leopoldo Francès, René Sarvil, Gaby Basset, Jacques Dynam, Robert Berri, Raymond Blot, Antoine Berval, Yoko Tani.

THE POSSESSORS / LES GRANDS FAMILLES  9:00

As we deal in 2018 with the fallout of a corrupt, inbred family and their effect on American politics and finance, we find that (as usual) the French managed to get to the same subject a good bit earlier. Sixty years earlier, in fact.

The Schoudler family seems to dominate all aspects of late-50s French society, but we quickly discover that it's a false front with as many skeletons as the Schoudler ladies have clothes closets. Gabin plays the ruthless, calculating patriarch (whose only Trump-like trait is a volcanic temper) who discovers that his well-meaning son (Jean Desailly) is being set up for a financial drubbing by the infamous black sheep of the family (played with a louche flamboyance by Pierre Brasseur), an event that threatens to unleash the domino effect of all domino effects. Moral rot is so prevalent here than one is surprised that it hasn't itself become a commodity on the Parisian stock exchange! Somehow Gabin still manages to seem heroic despite the mendacious money-grubbing he's forced to do for the sake of the "family name"...

(1958, 92min)  Directed by Denys de la Patellière. Dialogue by Michel Audiard. Adaptation by Denys de la Patellière and Michel Audiard from the novel by Maurice Druon. Photographed by Louis Page. Music by Maurice Thiriet. With Jean Gabin, Annie Ducaux, Jean Desailly, Françoise Christophe, Bernard Blier, Pierre Brasseur, Aimé Clariond, Jean Murat, Louis Seigner, Jean Wall, Daniel Lecourtois, Nadine Tallier, Jacques Monod, Emmanuelle Riva.

IN THE LITTLE ROXIE

THE BEAST AT BAY / LA BÊTE Á L'AFFÛT  5:00

Henri Vidal's last noir performance is an edgy one, aided amply by the alluring Françoise Arnoul and the old-pro director's skills of Pierre Chenal, who returned to France from a long exile to make his special version of French "B-noir."

Murder suspect Vidal is put under house arrest at the villa of wealthy widow Arnoul, who's far too young to give up on the physical pleasures of life. She dives into an affair with him under the noses of the police without stopping to ask the pertinent question: is Vidal actually a murderer? A chewy cat-and-mouse game ensues, leading to a fraught, atmospheric finale in an ancient lighthouse. Long live Chenal! Long live Vidal!

(1959, 83min)  Directed by Pierre Chenal. Screenplay by Pierre Chenal, Michel Audiard, André Tabet, and Rodolphe-Maurice Arlaud from the novel Moran's Woman by Day Keene. Photographed by Christian Matras. Music by Maurice Jarre. With Henri Vidal, Françoise Arnoul, Michel Piccoli, Gaby Sylvia, Jean Brochard, Lucien Barjon.