Le Port du désir (1955)
Directed by Edmond T. Gréville

Film Review

Le Port du désir is a film which was clearly influenced by contemporary American film noir and has much in common with another worthy example of French film noir, Du rififi chez les hommes (directed by Jules Dassin), which was released the same year.  What is striking about both of these two films, and what sets them apart from the vast majority of noir-influenced French crime-thrillers of this period, is the brutal realism that is achieved through the use of natural locations, depictions of no holds barred violence and a grittier, almost neo-realist approach to cinematography.

Unlike Dassin's film, which is universally acknowledged as a classic film noir thriller, Le Port du désir is a somewhat overlooked work, although it does merit wider appreciation.  It was directed by Edmond T. Gréville, who made several memorable films in France and one or two in Hollywood, notably Princess Tam Tam (1935) (starring Josephine Baker) and Brief Ecstasy (1937).  An underrated auteur and brilliant technician who was often ahead of his time, Gréville achieved a very distinctive style in his films that appears to have been greatly influenced by the best in America cinema.  The moody use of chiaroscuro lighting and ambitious fluid camerawork that we find in his films certainly invites a comparison with the classier American film noir thrillers.  There are even some touches of Hitchcockian suspense, such as the sequence in Le Port du désir where the principal baddy's henchman attempts to shoot "the dancer who knew to much" through a moving train.

The most well-known actor in this film is of course Jean Gabin, although at the time he was at an early stage in his remarkable return to stardom after several years in comparative obscurity.  (His flight to Hollywood during WWII did little for his image and very nearly finished off his career.)  When the film was released, its real star was Henri Vidal, a charismatic, talanted and very popular young actor who would die a few years later, at the age of 40, from a heart attack.  This is more Vidal's film than Gabin's, the latter's contribution being pretty well reduced to that of a supporting character.

What is particularly commendable about Le Port du désir is the imaginative way in which it is shot, particularly its remarkable underwater sequences.  The latter were filmed with support from Louis Malle who, a short while later, would work with Jacques-Yves Cousteau on the ground-breaking underwater documentary Le Monde du silence (1956), before embarking on a hugely successful and highly influential filmmaking career of his own.

Film Synopsis

As a sunken ship risks blocking the entrance to the port of Marseille, Captain Le Quévic is instructed by the naval authorities to raise the vessel and tow it away.  One man who is not pleased to hear this news is Black, a local smuggler who killed a woman to prevent her betraying him and hid her body on the wrecked craft.  Knowing that if Le Quévic succeeds the body will be discovered, Black has no choice but to sabotage the salvage operation.  His first thought is to offer the captain's young diver, Michel, a large sum of money to destroy the sunken ship with explosives.

Michel is willing to go along with the scheme until he discovers that this will make him an accessory to a murder.  Fearing what will happen next, the young man decides to run off with Martine, the dead woman's sister, with whom he has just fallen in love.  Black is not a man with a forgiving nature.  Infuriated, he takes Martine prisoner and uses her as a hostage so that he can coerce Michel into destroying the wreck against his wishes.  Fortunately, by now the police are on the scene and an investigation into the woman's death is leading ever closer to the smuggler's door...