Le Ruisseau (1938)
Directed by Maurice Lehmann, Claude Autant-Lara

Film Review

Immediately before working together on the popular comedy Fric-Frac (1939), Maurice Lehmann and Claude Autant-Lara shared the directing duties on another film, this time a conventional melodrama adapted from a play by Pierre Wolff.  What these two films have in common, other than the shared directing credit, is an impressive roll-call of actors headed by the incomparable Michel Simon, the most monstrous of French cinema's monstres sacrés.  Although his character is pretty incidental to the plot (and only appears halfway into the film), it is Simon who steals the show as a character (a nobleman turned purveyor of dirty photographs) who might well be the brother of the one he had previously played in Marcel Carné's Drôle de drame (1937).  The actress who revelled in the role of Simon's battleaxe wife in that film, Françoise Rosay, returns to torment him a second time, strutting her stuff as probably the butchest female cabaret artist in history.

Take away the lively scenes in which Simon and Rosay bite chunks out of each other like warring dinosaurs and all that remains is a fairly humdrum melodrama which treads an all too predictable course.  Gaby Sylvia and Paul Cambo are capable young actors but neither has star quality and both disappear into the background as soon as more charismatic performers such as Ginette Leclerc (captivating as the definitive 'tart with a heart') enter the frame.  Le Ruisseau just about makes it to the mid-point (thanks mainly to Autant-Lara's light touch direction) but it comes to life with a vengeance in its second half, as soon as Michel Simon pops up out of nowhere and starts to work his magic as an anarchic do-gooder.  As Simon goes to battle with the fire-breathing, nostril flaring Françoise Rosay, you can't help thinking that St George had an easy time of it with his famous Dragon.

Film Synopsis

Eager to embark on adult life, 17-year-old Denise absconds from the orphanage where she has spent most of her life and stows away on board a ship docked in the port of Le Havre.  She is discovered by a young naval officer, Paul, who wastes no time in seducing her.  Denise thinks she has found the love of her life but Paul is only interested in his career and regards their meeting as no more than a passing liaison.  Realising his mistake, Paul takes pity on the young woman and sends her to his mother, Régina Berry, a famous cabaret performer who is preparing her next show at a music hall in Paris.  Régina takes an instant liking to Denise and hires her as a dancer.  The girl that Denise replaces, a trouble causer named Ginette, becomes Denise's closest friend.  When Régina realises that Paul may be planning to marry Denise she betrays her to the director of the orphanage she escaped from.  Denise runs away a second time and finds work as a hostess in a seedy nightclub where Ginette works as a prostitute.  By this time, Paul has made up his mind to marry Denise, but when he sees how low she has fallen he has second thoughts.  It is left to Edouard de Bourgogne, a nobleman bribed by Régina to pass himself off as Paul's father, to see that the course of true love runs smoothly...