Assail The Unassailable: Jean Gabin

wasn't that MRS. Tracy, hence the 25-year affair w/ Kate?

No! Do please tell.

I don't know, Morbs. It's the gf who's the huge movie buff and who's read every bio on the planet but that's the way I remember hearing it. I wouldn't massively surprised if I were wrong.

very exciting restoration of Le Jour Se Leve, most complete version since '39

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-marcel-carnes-le-jour-se-leve

^^^ wow at this!
That Richard Brody quote in the Fandor article
is so...over the top, though. I like RB alright but think he often lapses into an enthusiastic overinterpretation of the subjects at hand.

The dialogue on Daybreak is wonderful, its like the writers got bored of the noir snappy back-and-forth, cut the jokes down and started thinking about the implications. So what is hidden beneath the relationship between the brute and the femme fatale and so on and forth.

I didn't know scenes were removed by the censor, otherwise I'd call the restoration pointless.

Having seen a few Gabin films now I'd say he is a marvel for the ages but you almost want to see him where he isn't a simpleton 'brute' etc. Plays it so well as has that presence so idk.

On the UK DVD commentary track for The Medusa Touch, director Jack Gold talks about Lino Ventura, one of the film's stars. Ventura was a friend of Jean Gabin, and he told Gold that Gabin had it written into his contracts that he would always have one scene in a film where he lost his temper. I don't know the truth of this - but it is funny to watch Gabin blow his top in film after film with this in mind.

He's quite dapper - a silver fox - and not at all brutish in French CanCan, which also got a BFI-funded digital presentation a couple of years ago, and looked glorious.

Last year's revival of Quai des Brumes happily corrected my feeling that I didn't like Carne/Prevert, based on an unhappy experience with Enfants Du Paradis a few years ago (too 'theatrical' for my taste, or something). I thought Le Jour Se Leve was just a notch down from Quai, tho' Arletty's topless scene in LJSL, brief but clearly erotic and 'daring' in intent, is genuinely startling because you can't imagine anything similar in American or British cinema from the same time.

only seen him in touchez pas au grisbi, and the grand illusion, but absolutely A+++ in both obv (sorry, i fail at this question)

tracer, you should see pepe le moko!

thumbsup.emoji.jpg

my favorite gabin performance is probably in "gueule d'amour" -- that's on a French DVD w/o subtitles,if you can go for that

Tracer? He is an old hand at French, iirc.

Yes to Pepe. Also earlier forgot to mention his key appearance in Mon oncle d'Amerique.

i'm almost certain I've seen Gueule d'Amour at some point in the last 20 years

like, when Elliott Stein wrote this in 2002 for a LincCtr retro:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-06-25/film/oedipus-in-overalls/

“When François, besieged by armed officers, screams, ‘I want peace! Peace!,’ he seems to speak for a panic-stricken nation.”

Charles Taylor would approve

oh hey, Gd'A is showing Sunday night in Queens! Great more stuff I have to see *pulls hair out*.

http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2014/11/23/detail/gueule-damour-lady-killer

I didn't know JG did several Inspector Maigret films.

yeah, you have to see that. the sexual politics are pretty retrograde (although in an enjoyably bonkers way), but it's extraordinary.

I did in fact see Gueule d'Amour 12 years ago, and again last night -- and it's not all that good imho. The audience, esp a couple of senior grayheads next to me, chortled through most of it like a Lubitsch comedy; the last 15 mins, not so much. 16mm print, kinda tired; maybe I just wasn't in the mood. Gabin really did look worn and older in the third act though.

Saw Jour se Leve earlier in the day, that's fine... still prefer Port of Shadows.

Saw a late (1970) Gabin vehicle yesterday, La Horse -- he's a farm patriarch who goes rather Charles Bronson when his grandson's drug deal brings urban baddies onto his land. It could be read as reactionary, but I think it's better than that. Minor but worth a look.

Has a great Gainsbourg score as well! I think it was Gabin's final film?

Sitting through a few films at the Gabin retrospective at the Cinematheque Français this March has been one of the good things about this shitty year for me.

nope -- he has seven more credits in '71-76. xp

Serge score is amusing but a little distracting at times.

anyone know this early Duvivier film?

http://filmforum.org/film/la-bandera-les-durs-film

No idea

on YT w/ no subtitles; i guess i will go to Film Forum at 6:15

La Bandera -- Yeah it's good! Foreign Legion fun and whorehouse hijinks.

yes, it's def fun, but the last third has a few too many FL movie cliches. Also a homoerotic Les Miz vibe.

Been watching a lot of Jean Gabin movies lately and am thoroughly convinced that Gabin had the best (frequently employed!) face slap technique in film history. Crisp, businesslike, startling out-of-the-box speed, resounding volume, filling-rattling impact, impeccable form. 10/10

— 𝖇𝖚𝖒𝖕 𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖈𝖐 1776 (@NickPinkerton) June 11, 2019

Jean Gabin: If you haven't seen Rififi (1959) or Razzia Sur le Chnouf (1955), do so at your first opportunity.

I thought Le Jour Se Leve was just a notch down from Quai, tho' Arletty's topless scene in LJSL, brief but clearly erotic and 'daring' in intent, is genuinely startling because you can't imagine anything similar in American or British cinema from the same time.

Ann Dvorak definitely doesn't do anything like that in The Long Night (1947), the bowdlerized American remake.

Spencer Tracy: Supposedly all his early Fox Films have been scheduled for preservation and restoration. The question is will any of those titles ever be seen outside MoMA and a few film festivals (and will Goldie ever be pried out of that collector's hands).

Can’t find it in this thread through Zing but I seem to recall some story that at some point he would demand for every film that the writers come up with a scenery chewing meltdown somewhere in the scenario for him.

My New Releases in #FilmNoir will be posted in a few minutes, but in the meantime, enjoy a drink with Jean Gabin, who has three films coming out on Blu-ray in August. pic.twitter.com/HZRjOpRUDl

— Andy Wolverton (@awolverton77) July 26, 2019

New bio subtitled The Actor Who Was France

http://filmint.nu/?p=28187

ace!

starring Cate Blanchett

If they make a Jean Gabin biopic in English (which God forbid) I hope they cast the guy who played Ryan on the O.C.

i'm trying to imagine how big the perceived audience for that would be...