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Martin Roumagnac
1946 Crime Drama
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Credits
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Director: Georges Lacombe
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Script: Pierre Véry, Georges Lacombe, based on the novel by Pierre-René Wolf
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Photo: Roger Hubert
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Music: Marcel Mirouze, Giovanni Fusco
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Cast: Marlene Dietrich (Blanche Ferrand),
Jean Gabin (Martin Roumagnac),
Jean d'Yd (L'oncle de Blanche),
Daniel Gélin (Le surveillant),
Jean Darcante (L'avocat),
Marcel Pérès (Paulo),
Camille Guérini (Le gardien),
Henri Poupon (Gargame,
le facteur),
Lucien Nat (Rimbaut),
Paul Amiot (Le président du tribunal),
Marcelle Hainia (Madame Percheron,
la pompiste),
Jean Heuzé (Le procureur),
Charles Lemontier (Bonnemain)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 115 min; B&W
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Aka: The Room Upstairs
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Summary
In a small provincial town, Blanche Ferrand and her uncle own a shop which sells seed
and birds. Blanche resents her drab milieu but has no difficulty attracting male
suitors who might offer her an escape. One of these is Martin Roumagnac,
a building contractor who falls passionately in love with Blanche as soon as he sees her.
Blanche appears to reciprocate Martin’s love but, without his knowing, she allows
herself to be courted by a wealthy consul, whose wife is grievously ill. The consul
proposes that after his wife’s death Blanche should marry him. When Martin
learns of this he is thrown into a murderous frenzy…
Review
After an unsuccessful attempt to break into Hollywood in the 1940s, actor Jean Gabin
returned to French cinema in 1946 with this bleak neo-noir melodrama, which also starred
his lover at the time, Marlene Dietrich. The couple had originally been slated
to star together in Marcel Carne’s
Les Portes de la nuit but instead opted for this film – an apparent casting
coup for director Georges Lacombe but one which turned out to be something of a poisoned
chalice.
Dietrich is hopelessly miscast and not the slightest bit convincing, whilst her
on-screen rapport with Gabin appears more like lukewarm endurance than smouldering passion.
Significantly, this was the only film the German actress made in France, and also the
only film where she appeared along side Jean Gabin. It was not long after making
this film that the couple separated.
What saves the film is the quality of acting
elsewhere, including a credible performance from Dietrich’s co-star. Here,
Jean Gabin plays the working class character of his earlier years but with a much darker,
more cynical edge – a foretaste of the tougher Gabin we would come to know and love
in the following decades. Working in America, coupled with his not insignificant
wartime service, had clearly left its mark on the actor.
The film’s noirish
atmosphere is typical of post-war gloom in European cinema at the time, with illusions
of prosperity, longevity and world harmony well and truly laid to rest. The tragic
ending, with its typically noirish “free but dead” motif – although
painfully contrived from a dramatic point of view – is brilliantly realised, matching
the standard of the films which Lacombe made earlier in the decade.
© James Travers 2004
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