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Remorques  /  L'étrange Monsieur Victor

Remorques (1941)
November 6, 2015 - 7:30 pm
Billy Wilder Theater
In-person: 
author Charles Zigman.

Remorques  (France, 1941)


Brimming with emotional force, director Jean Grémillon's masterly feature counterposes duty with runaway fantasy in its story of a tugboat captain torn between a sick, homebound wife and a mysterious, beautiful woman.  The picture's metaphorical use of crashing waves and surging musical flourishes invest it with a timelessness that nevertheless spoke to the very timely passions of the beginnings of the Vichy era.

35mm, b/w, in French with English subtitles, 91 min.  Production: SEDIF.  Distribution: Films Sonores Tobis.  Director: Jean Grémillon.  Based on the novel by Roger Vercel.  Screenwriter: André Cayatte, Jacques Prévert.  Cinematographer: A. Thirard.  Editor: Yvonne Martin.  Composer: Roland-Manuel.  With: Jean Gabin, Madeleine Renaud, Michèle Morgan, Charles Blavette, Jean Marchat.

L'étrange Monsieur Victor  (France, 1938)


A quiet sense of irony and moral relativity suffuses this unusual and rarely-screened feature about a respectable shopkeeper in Toulon who lives a double-life as a gangland leader.  Not above seeing his own neighbor prosecuted for his crimes, Victor unwittingly stumbles his way toward a final comeuppance, navigating a morally ambiguous universe that seems largely the film's point.

35mm, b/w, in French with English subtitles, 91 min.  Production: L'Alliance Cinématographique Européene, Universum Film.  Distribution: L'Alliance Cinématographique Européene.  Director: Jean Grémillon.  Screenwriter: Marcel Achard, Charles Spaak, Albert Valentin.  Cinematographer: Werner Krien.  Composer: Roland Manuel.  With: Raimu, Pierre Blanchar, Madeleine Renaud, Viviane Romance, Marcelle Géniat.

Part of: 
Jean Grémillon: Le Ciel est à Vous