Les trois photos du haut : Scènes de tournage
Résumé Wiki
Jean (Jean Gabin), un déserteur de l'armée coloniale, arrive au Havre d'où il veut quitter la France. Dans le bistrot de Panama, un original, il fait la connaissance de Nelly (Michèle Morgan), jeune fille mélancolique terrorisée par son tuteur Zabel (Michel Simon) qu'elle soupçonne d'avoir assassiné Maurice, son amant.Pour défendre Nelly, Jean tue Zabel. Alors qu'il s'enfuit pour le Venezuela,* il croise Lucien (Pierre Brasseur), un jeune truand local dont il s'est attiré la haine....
(* là j'ai un peu changé...ils racontent la fin ces gros na... euh..ces grands étourdis)
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Hauntingly sad French masterpiece
Author: ingemann2000
13 December 2004
I've just seen Port of Shadows for the first time in my life, and I must say I really liked it. I'm already a great admirer of old black & white pictures, and I enjoyed The Great Illusion as well. This one is rather different from Illusion, though from the same era and also with Jean Gabin as the quintessential Frenchman. It's hauntingly sad, quietly emotional, and even if it's a bit dated in some places (the pathetic hood played by Brasseur) it still manages to creep up on you and leaves you absorbed with the motifs of human loneliness and the not unreasonable, but ultimately impossible human dream of happiness.
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So it's not a laugh-riot, and you don't leave the cinema with a happy feeling, but you do feel good about having seen it. It's a masterpiece in French cinema history, Jean Gabin is ideal as the tough-as-butter soldier with a doomed soft spot for Michéle Morgan's beautiful waif, and in the end all you remember is the quiet mists of Le Havre harbor, and the sense of ill-fate and lost chances. Not to mention the beautiful eyes of a very young Morgan!
