Pépé le Moko ***** (1937, Jean Gabin, Mireille Balin, Gabriel Gabrio, Saturnin Fabre, Lucas Gridoux, Gilbert Gil, Line Noro) – Classic Movie Review 4,298

Director Julien Duvivier’s 1937 French film classic Pépé le Moko is based on the novel by Henri La Barthe and stars Jean Gabin as a gangster on the run in Algiers, who believes he is safe in the Casbah.

In one of his most famous parts, Jean Gabin lights up the screen as Paris gangster Pépé le Moko, who hides out from the law in the Casbah in Algiers but gets arrested when leaving the criminal ghetto for a beautiful visiting Paris femme fatale, Gaby (Mireille Balin). Lucas Gridoux plays the dogged detective Inspector Slimane, on the trail of Pépé. 

With its lavish displays of passion, doom, gloom, poetry and sheer Frenchness, this superb 1937 film is a great credit to co-writer/ director Julien Duvivier, whose mastery of mood and feeling is perfect. It is one of the most famous and highly regarded examples of the 1930s poetic realism movement in French films, but shot in shadowy film noir style by cinematographers Marc Fossard and Jules Kruger.

Jean Gabin (1904–1976)

Yet it is remembered best as Gabin’s great triumph, and is unfairly overshadowed outside France by the Hollywood remake, Algiers (1938), with Charles Boyer. It shines out as one of the outstanding films of its period and is still an unchallengeable cinema masterwork.

Also in the cast are Gabriel Gabrio, Lucas Gridoux, Gilbert Gil, Line Noro, Saturnine Fabre, Fernand Charpin, Marcel Dalio, Charles Granval, Gaston Modot, René Bergeron, Paul Escoffier, Roger Legris, Jean Témerson, Robert Ozanne, Philippe Richard, Fréhel, Georges Péclet, Olga Lord and Renée Carl.

Henri La Barthe and Julien Duvivier write the screenplay, with Jacques Constant credited for adaptation and Henri Jeanson for dialogue, adapting the 1937 novel by Henri La Barthe (writing as Detective Ashelbé).

It was shot in the studio on a replica of the Casbah at Joinville-le-Pont, near Paris, with sets by Jacques Krauss, and only exterior shots were filmed in Algiers.

It was also made again as Casbah (1948) with Tony Martin, Yvonne De Carlo and Peter Lorre.

Algiers is a 1938 American drama film directed by John Cromwell and starring Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, and Hedy Lamarr in her US film debut.

The French release was 1937 but it arrived in the US four years later thanks to the producer of Algiers (1938), Walter Wanger, buying the US rights, no doubt more interested in film noir than poetic realism. He bought all prints of Pépé le Moko to prevent it from competing with Algiers in the US. And he reused most of the music from Pépé le Moko in Algiers as well as background sequences.

Release dates: 28 January 1937 (France) and 3 March 1941 (US).

It inspired the Looney Tunes cartoon cartoon character Pepé Le Pew, introduced in 1945.

The cast

The cast are Jean Gabin as Pépé le Moko, Gabriel Gabrio as Carlos, Mireille Balin as Gaby Gould, Saturnin Fabre as grandfather, Line Noro as Inès, Fernand Charpin as Régis, Lucas Gridoux as Inspector Slimane, Gilbert Gil as Pierrot, Marcel Dalio as L’Arbi, Charles Granval as Maxime, Gaston Modot as Jimmy, René Bergeron as Inspector Meunier, Paul Escoffier as Chief Inspector Louvain, Roger Legris as Max, Jean Témerson as Gravèr, Robert Ozanne as Gendron, Philippe Richard as Janvier, Georges Péclet as Barsac, Fréhel as Tania, Olga Lord as Aïcha, and Renée Carl as the mother Tarte.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,298

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