museumofdave An amazing surprise unfolded with my first viewing of Pepe Le Moko, an amazingly atmospheric tale of a man willingly trapped by the labyrinth that is the Casbah, an attractive criminal with a flair for smart dress and a personal code that makes him a legend on the streets.There is a reason that Marlene Dietrich claimed that Jean Gabin was the only man she truly loved, and it's evident here; he's not conventionally handsome, but his honesty and intelligence shine through, and Duvivier sets up so many memorable set pieces one must return to the film again to wholly experience them: in one, a cowardly traitor falls against a player piano setting off a giddy tune while he is stalked by a dying gang member barely able to focus his gun; in another--well, experience them for yourself! This is not a conventional thriller top heavy with special effects, but a subtle examination of character taunted by the promise of a romantic future. It's a potent reminder of how important character can be in a significant story, how much more effective a good story than computer-generated effects.

GManfred Yes, I know, a trite headline. Apart from the fact that I don't know much French, isn't it uncanny how many tales, fiction and non, have a woman at the heart of matters? So it is with Pepe Le Moko, another poor slob caught in a love affair which costs him dearly. And to think he was the toast of The Casbah, a local hero with all the money and women and friendship he could ask for.Director Duvuvier paints a vivid picture of the sprawling slum that is the Casbah, teeming with humanity and activity, a place that has become a prison - in an abstract sense - for Pepe. The movie sets a fast pace, with barely time to catch your breath as the tension builds towards a climax both anticipated and disheartening - as so often happens, we root for this appealing criminal, hoping the outcome will be different than we expect.Some have said that the film is a 'film noir' prototype, and I agree, even though the genre didn't start until a few years later. If we include it, it is one of the best - the website description of crime/drama/romance lends a mundane feel and doesn't do it justice.

robert-temple-1 It is true what they say, that this is an early French film noir, before the term film noir was even invented. Jean Gabin is mesmerizing as the charismatic gangster Pépé, who has been holed up in the Casbah of Algiers for two years and unable to get out because only there can he successfully evade the police raids by leaping over the rooftops. The intensity of his stares is well captured on camera by director Julien Duvivier, who worked with Gabin so many times and knew him so well. The film was made on location in Algiers, Algeria being then a French colony. The film is thus marvellously exotic and evocative of the Casbah, more so than the later film which was also set in the Casbah, BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966). Not that the Casbah is in any way flattered by this film, as the characters are continually cursing its lice and its filth. This film was remade in English the following year as ALGIERS (1938), with Charles Boyer as the gangster and Hedy Lamarr as the femme fatale Gaby. Then it was remade again in English as CASBAH (1948) with Tony Martin as the gangster. We can thus chart a steady progression of decline in quality, starting with the original and ending with the second, and rather faint, carbon copy, all based on the same novel by Henri Le Barthe. In this original version, the 28 year-old Mireille Balin plays the femme fatale character Gaby with sizzling intensity. (The story of what happened to Balin in her private life is deeply disturbing, and those who wish to know about it should read her bio on the database.) When Balin and Gabin look at each other 'in that way', we witness en electron in collision with a positron. Inès, the gypsy girl who loves Gabin, is played by Line Noro, who despite her Italian name was French, born in Lorraine. She is continually distraught over the restless 'cabin fever' which is driving Gabin mad with frustration, cooped up as he has been for so long. But when he meets Balin by chance, he is driven even wilder, this time with uncontrollable lust. But that lust represents freedom. He and Balin begin discussing districts and particular streets of Paris and work themselves up into a frenzy of memory for the city they love, and from which they have both been exiled for their different reasons. These scenes remind one of the scenes in Clouzot's film THE WAGES OF FEAR (1953), in which Yves Montand, another French exile in the middle of nowhere, reminisces with one of the other characters in the film about his favourite street near Place St. Michel. If you take French people away from Paris for too long, they quickly become maudlin and go to pieces. And Paris, perhaps more than any other large city in the world, is defined by its particular locations, its specific streets, to those who love it. Nowhere so much as in Paris is the charm of each separate spot so alluring. As Gabin and Balin (strange how similar their surnames were!) work themselves up into a lather of memories of Paris, the unattainable Balin, who is staying in a hotel outside the Casbah, comes to represent for Gabin the equally unattainable Paris, and the impossibility of freedom to roam, so that like a caged panther he strides with manic desperation back and forth, back and forth, as his gypsy gal sees clearly that his doom is coming. And his doom means the end of everything for her, unless she can somehow prevent it. Gabin snaps, bringing on a cascade of dramatic events. This is an excellent film, but not a great one.

alexmatte It is widely reported that Graham Greene, usually bitingly severe when it came to film criticism, was almost lost in praise for Pepe Le Moko. This is very interesting, as he effectively wrote and screen-adapted his own even more brilliant version a decade or so later, in the form of the incomparable The Third Man (1949). Jean Gabin's Pepe's effective imprisonment in the Kasbah becomes Orson Welles' Harry Lime's own condemnation to haunt only the Russian sector and the sewers of Vienna, where the Russians can use him and the British cannot reach him. And Mireille Balin's Gaby becomes Alida Valli's Anna, respectively the direct and indirect causes for the downfall of the anti-heroes whom they love. And the sly but ruthless inspector Slimane becomes the relentless Major Calloway. And the shadows and camera-work are in spirit transported from one film to the other, as are the little poignant moments like the child on the Kasbah lane, who becomes the little boy with the ball. Another classic with strong connections to Pepe Le Moko is The Wages of Fear (1953), with Yves Montand again a Frenchman for whom Paris is the universe, trapped this time by penury in a South American backwater that he hates, with death again in the last scene providing an alternative release from such bondage. And the unorthodox, opportunist and patient tactics of inspector Slimane recall the equally ruthless brooding intensity of Major Ali Tufan in Topkapi (1964) - both lawmen getting their European men. There is a much wider lesson in this, and never more so than at this time of Western capitulation in Iraq. These films, like also the brilliant Oeil Pour Oeil (An Eye For An Eye, 1957), are typical of a very long tradition by film-makers of keenly recognising the fact that the Islamic world generally made a very bad foe, and a very good grave, for Westerners. The imperial British in Afghanistan and Rudyard Kipling as their troubadour understood exactly as much, too. They may fight opportunistically and they may fight suicidally, but in the end their overwhelming asset is that they fight at home, against displaced Westerners who are as uncomprehending as they are repelled in such alien lands. And the result is always the same, extendable by analogy to Viet Nam and other wars. Films such as all the above may be fiction, but their greatness lies in their profound observation and perspective on life and the real world. Perhaps every new government in Washington, Canberra and elsewhere should be sat down to such great examples of the cinematic art, on the off chance that they might have enough perspicacity to detect in them some of the fundamental truths that they seem to have missed via other means.