L'impostore

This is a good film from the Gabin-Duvivier partnership, though now the two of them have escaped Paris and are in Hollywood. The result is this World War II propaganda film.

Jean Gabin plays Clement, a prisoner found guilty of murder who is about to be executed. He is with the executioners when the Nazis bomb that part of the prison, and Clement escapes. He hitches a ride with some soldiers in a truck; there is a skirmish, and when Clement regains consciousness, the soldiers around him are dead. He steals the clothes and identity of a soldier named LeFarge. He then joins the French Resistance, headed for Africa.

This film is about true identity and camaraderie as soldiers, separated from the homes and loved ones, reminisce about what they've left behind, but patriotism has taken them to the fight.

Gabin is great as an embittered loner who soon learns the meaning of friendship as he fights in the trenches. There are wonderful performances from Richard Whorf, Allyn Joslyn, Ellen Drew, and Peter Van Eyck.

What's in a name - indeed. Highly recommended.

Jean Gabin is to be guillotined. Before that happens, the Germans enter Paris, the prison he is kept in is bombed, and Gabin is out, picking up the identification of a dead man on the road. Then it's out of Metropolitan France, headed for the safety of anonymity of Brazzaville. But as he gets off the boat, the promise of a free meal and a position in the Free French Army -- with pay! -- suckers him in, and now he's stuck with the fake identity, and a year of working on a radio installation with other Frenchmen who want a chance to fight, and who mistake his simple pleasure at being alive and not in harm's way for a deeper sort of patriotism. Gradually, he comes to realize they are right.

Under the direction of Julien Duvivier, Gabin gives a very simple performance in this movie that seems far afield from the roles he played for the director in France. It's a standard tale of wartime redemption a la CASABLANCA, and the role could have been played by Cagney or Bogart, or Power or Gable (if he hadn't been off fighting the war), and they would have had more lines; given that Gabin's "countrymen" are players like Allyn Joslyn and John Qualen, his lines are short to hide his accent and the others' lack. Even so, it's a canny choice. It makes his quiet seem more thoughtful, his redemption through action rather than words, and truer for that.

The result isn't great. It seems one of a pack of similar films, and the rumor is that the unnamed writer who sold the idea to be developed also sold it to Warners for UNCERTAIN GLORY. Still, with a cast that includes Ellen Drew, Ralph Morgan and Fritz Leiber, it's a solid programmer.

This is the second of the two films which Jean Gabin made while in exile during the War in America, having escaped from the German occupation of Paris. The first of his films was MOONTIDE (1942, see my review), a film of no merit in itself, but important and interesting because of its casting of Gabin opposite Ida Lupino. This film is much better, though because of the nature of the story, there is no female lead. The film, made in English, is known to the French as L'IMPOSTEUR (THE IMPOSTOR), and the French like to watch it with French subtitles because of the hero-worship there of Jean Gabin. The film was produced and directed by French director Julien Duvivier, who also wrote the original screenplay. Duvivier was also in America at that time to get away from the Nazis. It seems odd that when he returned home after the War his reputation was damaged because he had left. One would think that the collaborators who continued to work in French films while the Nazis were controlling all the film production were the people whose reputations should be ruined, not merely damaged. This shows the hypocrisy of some. Duvivier had worked with Gabin before and was responsible for making him an international star during the 1930s. Duvivier and Gabin worked together again in France after the War, in TWELVE HOURS TO LIVE (aka VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSSINS, 1956). This film has an ingenious story. It concerns a condemned murderer (Gabin) who escapes prison and execution in France because the prison is bombed. Hitching a lift in a truck with French soldiers who are fleeing south, a German fighter plane strafes the truck and kills the soldiers. Gabin escapes, and as he has nothing but the clothes he is wearing, takes the papers of a dead sergeant and dons his uniform, and heads south with a new identity. But he is swept up in the Free French Army and gets onto a boat taking him and other real soldiers to French Equatorial Africa, which is still under Free French control and loyal to de Gaulle. He helps to construct a jungle airfield, and later he fights in Libya where he becomes a hero. He is eventually promoted to Lieutenant. But the question of his identity becomes a real problem when he is awarded a medal for bravery in an earlier action in France, an action carried out by the dead man. Then a woman comes searching for him, and his position becomes shakier and shakier. Will he be unmasked as an impostor? What will become of him? The film was made on a relatively low budget and lacks production values, but because of the good direction and acting, the film is worthwhile. It also gives some useful background on what the Free French were up to during the War, about which too little is known. We are used to patriotic war films in English beating the drums for America and for the British, but here is one beating the drums for the French instead, with a few lines thrown into the dialogue about what good fellows the Americans are, doubtless necessary for a film made in Hollywood. The film is therefore interesting for several reasons, and for those who follow Gabin and Duvivier, a necessity.

If you've seen Raoul Walsh's "Uncertain glory", the resemblance of the beginnings of the two films will strike you.In both work,Errol Flynn (Walsh) and Gabin (Duvivier) are about to be guillotined but a bombing destroys everything,and they are free .So to speak.For France is either occupied (Walsh) or about to be (Duvivier).Most amazing thing,the films were made at the same time,as propaganda movies.To be fair ,one should say that Walsh's work is superior to Duvivier's.

Duvivier and Walsh take two divergent ways then.But the subject (and the moral) remains roughly the same: an impostor,a man (both Flynn and Gabin tell it so ) who is not afraid to die ,but who wants to die honorably ,not on a guillotine but while fighting for his country,thus redeeming himself.

Duvivier's story is almost a rehashed "Bandera" (1934),but it's not as bad as people generally say.Gabin (what a great idea!) killed a man,but he was so poor,having been brought up in an orphanage,sent to reform school ,blah ,blah,blah,well we know the score!.And as he becomes some talented Mister Ripley in the army,he nonetheless displays bravery, abnegation and sympathy for his mates.The most interesting scenes show Gabin with his pal from Normandy ,who remembers Christmases with his wife and his sister-in law Jeanne-Marie.The soundtrack includes many military marches("La Marseillaise" "Marche Lorraine" "Chant Du Départ" ). De Gaulle's speech (France has lost a battle,but France has not lost the war...) in English loses 90% of its appeal.

Duvivier's last American film ,it's perhaps his least interesting,but anyone interested in Duvivier's work should watch it once.

Jean Gabin's second Hollywood film is practically an updated remake of his earlier French "La Bandera" (1935), also directed by Julien Duvivier. You can sort of see the general trajectory his character will go through early on (from cynical and opportunistic to noble and ultra-patriotic), but the film is well-produced on a big scale and has several stirring moments. Technically the two most impressive sequences come near the start (the bombing of a prison and the explosion of a truck), but dramatically it becomes more involving at its later sections. *** out of 4.