A perfect film, and one that is certainly going in my film noir pantheon. The narrative bears a strong resemblance to Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night, following a mysterious, acerbic military deserter as he gets embroiled in a provincial French underworld. This is classic, prototypical film noir, but with a few key differences that distinguish it from the American genre. Befitting the roiling fog of its dockside location, the cinematography is characterized by an extensive range of greys rather than a strong contrast of black and white—a look Orson Welles recognized as more properly suited to the genre’s moral ambiguity, and which he used to great effect in Touch of Evil two decades later. Another big distinction is the humour. This film had a packed auditorium laughing consistently; I have no recollection of humour in any American film noir, certainly not from the same period.
A theme central to the film noir genre is the ever-present thread of masculinity, and it is quite interesting to compare and contrast this film’s sexuality to its American counterparts. First of all—I could be wrong here—but I doubt that you would get a shot of Lauren Bacall lying naked in bed, post-coitus. You certainly would not get a side character entering the room to comedic effect, with no-one blinking an eye. Nor would you get the main character admitting that his refractory period is up as we dissolve out of him pushing his love interest down onto the bed (…maybe you would actually get something not far from this). Something else that struck me as quite unique is the main guy frankly insisting that he believes all women have a price. It is not so much that American sexuality is more prudential; I also think it’s too simplistic to just say that it’s the result of the Hays Code (which was, after all, a self-imposed regulation internal to the industry). Censorious policy is itself the symptom of something else. I think that American masculinity / sexuality is simply more coded, more highly regulated by complex rituals and expressions of decency than French sexuality, which is absolutely forthright. This is not to say that the end result is any different, because I don’t think it is. Both societies are similarly patriarchal, similarly entrenched in rape culture and ephebophilia, etc etc. Americans are NOT prudes; they are NOT more gentle or respectful towards women when compared to the French: they are simply more coded in their designs. Make of that what you will; it’s not for me to cast judgement one way or the other, although the forthrightness of the main guy here does seem less toxic than some of Bogey’s more despicable turns. This is all just to say that, in the context of watching this film next to so many American films from around the same time, it provides quite an interesting (and refreshing) contrast.