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The Worst Film Ever

Disappointment for a huge fan!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan in their only bad movie, in spite of a Charles Spaak script. But the production is really poor and Maurice Gleize's direction is out of mind. In fact, there is nothing much to save about that cheapie. Jean Gabin tries hard to get in his character, don't miss the intro. Michèle Morgan seems to be forgotten by make-up and costume crew. Pierre Renoir has a quite threatening presence. Funny appearances by Saturnin Fabre and a young Yves Deniaud as a seller. And a quick appearance of young Raymond Bussières, nothing special. The settings are awful, who could guess the action is in Australia. The lightning is sometimes very atmospheric like in a film noir (the intro), sometimes completely dull (Carette's face isn't even lightened in a boat scene). Le Récif de Corail isn't a forgotten treasure.

Between 1923 and 1952 Maurice Gleize managed to direct twenty two films in France without distinguishing himself. This one, with a screenplay by top French scriptwriter Charles Spaak, had arguably the best cast he ever got to work with (on other occasions he directed Fenandel, Charles Vanel and Marie Bell) from co-stars Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan - hot on the heels of Quai des brumes that same year - to Saturnin Fabre, Gaston Modot and Julien Carrette but for all Gleize extracted from them it might as well have been John Lund and Maria Montez supported by Leo Gorcey and the Bowery Boys. The plot kicks off with a Fantastic Surprise: Jean Gabin has killed a man and is obliged to flee the country (Okay, I lied about the surprise, but this movie needs all the help it can get), this time around he winds up in Australia about four blocks North of Rue Vavin on ligne 4 of the Metro where, in the fullness of time (the best part of an hour) he meets Michele Morgan who is also an assassin - a plot twist too far and too late - and they spend a half hour or so dodging the law. The sad thing is that every actor I've named is more than worth watching in anything as they are here but how much more worth watching they would have been in SOMETHING worth watching.

...that's why ,the year after "Quai des Brumes" ,one of Marcel Carné's best films ,here they are again:Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan .The movie was recently broadcast on the French TV and it's a big disappointment,particularly coming from a scenarist like Charles Spaak.First of all,the action takes place in a chocolate box Australia (they tell us it happens in Australia,we would never guess).Gabin has killed a man,and of course he did not mean to do such as a thing.So ,he 's got to sail away to the islands in the sun (a permanent feature in the thirties French cinema).Morgan ,who appears only in the second half ,committed a murder too.A policeman is hot on their heels.And to crown it all, there's an influenza epidemic.Enough is enough!There are more holes in the plot than in Swiss cheese.Gabin and Morgan were to make a third movie together,and that last one was successful: "Remorques" by Jean Gremillon,a few years later.