Quai de Grenelle (1950)
Directed by Emil E. Reinert

Film Review

Whilst Quai de Grenelle does somewhat resemble an all-too-obvious attempt to cash in on the popularity of American film noir in France of the late 1940s, it is actually a surprisingly good example of its genre and succeeds where Marcel Carné and Jacques Prévert failed, which is to extend the life of poetic realism beyond its doom-laden heyday of the late 1930s into the era of post-WWII modernity. The plot may be excessively contrived, the pace a little uneven, the secondary characters somewhat prone to caricature, but for all that it is a compelling piece that deals astutely and compassionately with two of the most pressing social preoccupations of its time - juvenile delinquency and class prejudice.  As these continue to be major problems for western society, the film still has a chilling resonance, something that sets it apart from the vast majority of French thrillers of the pre-Nouvelle Vague era.

The film is adapted from the novel La Mort à boire by Jacques Laurent (better known under his other name Cecil Saint-Laurent, of Caroline chérie fame) and directed, with considerable flair, by Emil E. Reinert, a French filmmaker and screenwriter of German origin, whose diverse output included films made in France, Austria, Italy, the UK and the United States.  Reinert pays an affectionate homage to classic film noir by using extremely low camera angles (perhaps a little too gratuitously), shadowy interiors (which suggest the moral ambiguity of their inhabitants) and some eerily beautiful night-time sequences set in Paris that might well have been filmed by Otto Preminger. The story, that of an innocent young man's dramatic and irreversible descent into hell, is pure film noir material, and for a film that starts out fairly low key, almost as a slight comedy, it is surprising how utterly bleak it becomes in its last thirty minutes.  Plotwise, it may be a pretty conventional crime drama, but by the time the 'Fin' caption flashes up Quai de Grenelle impresses as one of the most shocking French films of its era.

One of the reasons why the film is so effective is because it is impeccably well cast, with Henri Vidal suitably chosen to play the doomed hero, whose fate is conveniently spelled out for him in his surname, Cavalade (en cavale being the French phrase for 'on the run').  (The fact that his character is young and poor also plays a part in his downfall).  It is role for which Vidal was naturally cast both on screen and in real life (the actor died from a heart attack in 1959, aged 40, after succumbing to drugs).  He may not have had a great dramatic range but his charisma and instantly likeable persona, together with an incongruous air of fragility, made him a bankable lead in films such as this.

Of course it helps that Vidal is surrounded by a host of eye-catching females that include Françoise Arnoul (stunning at the start of her career), Maria Mauban (looking scarily like Barbara Stanwyck in some scenes) and Micheline Francey.  Today, Mauban is remembered for taking over the part of Louis de Funès's long suffering wife Josépha in Le Gendarme et les Extra-terrestres (1979), so it's fitting that de Funès should also appear in the film, in a short but typically humorous scene.  Two other French acting legends - Jean Tissier and Robert Dalban - complete an admirable ensemble, with Tissier giving the film's stand out performance as a shadowy shoe collector who comes to a very, very nasty end.  Don't be taken in by Quai de Grenelle's deceptively mundane beginning.  This grimly fatalistic drama still has the power to shock and grips with the force of a fully grown boa constrictor in its starkly nihilistic final reel.

Film Synopsis

Jean-Louis Cavalade is an impetuous young man who likes nothing better than to hunt snakes in the Forest of Fontainebleau.  One day, whilst out walking the streets of Paris with his girlfriend Simone, he gets into a heated argument with a belligerent traffic cop.  Before he knows it, Jean-Louis is mistaken for a hoodlum who recently committed a hold-up, and is soon being pursued by both the police and a sensation-hungry journalist.  Mado, a kind-hearted prostitute, offers him sanctuary, but Jean-Louis repays her by striking her dead in the course of a row.  After committing a second murder, it seems that the young man's fate is sealed, unless he can escape from France before the police catch up with him...