La Bête Humaine [The Human Beast] ***** (1938, Jean Gabin, Julien Carette, Simone Simon, Fernand Ledoux) – Classic Movie Review 2,788

Packed with passion and atmosphere, writer-director Jean Renoir’s 1938 modernised French film version of the antique 1890 Emile Zola novel La Bête Humaine is both one of the great train movies and one of the great murder melodramas, as well as one of the great works of the cinema of the period.

Jean Gabin stars as Jacques Lantier, an engine driver on the Paris to Le Havre train, a man prone to violent seizures. Fernand Ledoux plays his co-worker, the train conductor Roubaud, who is married to the much younger Séverine, played by Simone Simon (from Cat People).

Roubaud kills rich Grandmorin (Jacques Berlioz) when he learns of Séverine’s affair with him, makes sure that Séverine is present, an accomplice to the murder. Lantier witnesses the murder but stays quiet to protect Séverine and they become lovers. Soon they’re planning to bump off old Roubaud.

As screen-writer, Renoir adds to Zola novel the elements of social analysis and poetic spirit of despair that characterised many of the great French movies of this immediately pre-World War Two period. It is both a romantic drama and a pioneer of the film noir genre. The main setting turns the train into one of the film’s main characters.

Gabin and Simon are at their most luminous and resonant. Gabin brings his great brooding authority to the film, and Simon is entrancing. Curt Courant’s film noir cinematography is a major achievement, and a main ingredient in the film’s success. The score is by Hungarian-French composer Joseph Kosma.

La Bête Humaine won the Prix Méliès in 1938.

Also in the cast are Julien Carette, Blanchette Brunoy, Gérard Landry, Jenny Hélia, Colette Regis, Claire Gérard and Jean Renoir (as Cabuche).

Renoir wrote the script over just a fortnight, having not read Zola’s novel in more than 25 years. To get it down to 100 minutes, he had to omit several famous moments in the novel. He said: ‘While I was shooting, I kept modifying the scenario, bringing it closer to Zola. The dialogue which I gave Simone Simon is almost entirely copied from Zola’s text. Since I was working at top speed, I’d re-read a few pages of Zola every night, to make sure I wasn’t overlooking anything.’

Exteriors were filmed at the Gare Saint-Lazare and at Le Havre, with filming starting on 12 August 1938.

Jean Gabin wanted to star in a film about trains and wrote a screenplay called Train d’Enfer to be directed by Jean Grémillon, who disliked the script and suggested filming Zola’s novel La Bête Humaine. Gabin then dumped Grémillon and hired Jean Renoir again after their success with La Grand Illusion (1937). Renoir eventually wrote the script in 12 or 15 days, depending on the version of the story, and then read the screenplay to Gabin’s producer Robert Hakim, who asked for ‘trifling modifications’.

La Bête Humaine was remade by Fritz Lang as Human Desire in 1954 with Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame.

The cast are Jean Gabin as Jacques Lantier, Simone Simon as Séverine Roubaud, Fernand Ledoux as Roubaud, Blanchette Brunoy as Flore, Gérard Landry as Le fils Dauvergne, Jenny Hélia as Philomène Sauvagnat, Colette Régis as Victoire Pecqueux, Claire Gérard as Une voyageuse, Charlotte Clasis as Tante Phasie, Jacques Berlioz as Grandmorin, Tony Corteggiani as Dabadie, André Tavernier as Le juge d’instruction Denizet, Marcel Pérès as Un lampiste, Jean Renoir as Cabuche, and Julien Carette as Pecqueux.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,788

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