Le Quai des brumes

Deserter Jean (Jean Gabin) arrives in the misty harbour town of Le Havre with the sole intention of catching the first boat out to South America. He chances upon a suicide-victim’s clothes and passport, and his plan appears to come harmoniously together… until he meets 17-year-old Nelly (Michèle Morgan).

Trouble follows Nelly as much as it does Jean, with an assortment of the local’s lusting and hustling after her; Jean also finds temptation too hard to bear and soon falls in love with her. Jean is forced to protect Nelly from local hood Lucien and her guardian, Zabel (Michel Simon), both infatuated with her and both ruthless crooks.
Suddenly South America seems very far away…

Marcel Carné (‘Les Enfants du paradis’, ‘Le Jour se lève’) asserts his position as the master of poetic realism, the self-styled genre that came to embody the great works from France’s Golden Age of Cinema.

The film’s atmospheric and energetic cinematography is combined with a measured score and sharp script, written by the lauded poet Jacques Prévert and based on the acclaimed novel by Pierre Mac Orlan.
Furthermore, ‘Le Quai des brumes’ showcases the dream leading couple of Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan (think Gable and Leigh on the legend meter), as well as Jean Renoir’s leading man of choice Michel Simon (‘Boudu Saved From Drowning’, ‘La Chienne’).

Carné directs this world-class cast and crew with aplomb, to great commercial and critical acclaim upon the film’s release (winner of the Prix Louis-Delluc 1939, the definitive award for best French film of the year), and its reverence has yet to dim (look out for a scene involving a projection of Carné’s film in 2007’s ‘Atonement’).