Film Details

A year after their fatalistic Port of Shadows and six years before their landmark Children of Paradise, director Marcel Carné and scenarist Pierre Prévert created another romantic screen masterpiece, one that critic Andrew Sarris called “the quintessence of French ‘poetic realism.’” Jean Gabin plays a hunted, haunted laborer who has barricaded himself in his apartment after killing a man. As the cops try to blast their way into his refuge, he thinks back on the events (seen in flashback) that have landed him in this predicament. Arletty (Garance in Children of Paradise) plays a woman involved with Gabin, and a nude shot of her emerging from the shower was one of many cuts made by France’s Vichy government after it came to power during the Nazi occupation. (Also deleted were the names of Jewish crew members in the credits; eventually the whole movie was banned as “too demoralizing.”) All edits have been restored to this new 4K digital restoration, which also has newly translated subtitles. “Possibly the best of the Carné–Prévert films.” –Time Out Film Guide.