Moontide (1942)
Country: US
Technical: bw 94m
Director: Archie Mayo, Fritz Lang (uncredited)
Cast: Jean Gabin, Ida Lupino, Claude Rains, Thomas Mitchell, Jerome Cowan
Synopsis:
In a small Californian port, the lives of an itinerant drinker and the more or less parasitic hangers-on around him take a different course when he rescues a waif who is trying to drown herself.
Review:
This extraordinary Fox melodrama attempts to marry Zola archetypes with poetic realism and comes out as a remake of Le Quai des Brumes in all but name. It would seem that in not knowing what to do with Gabin, the studios essentially repackaged two of his 30s successes, the other being Duvivier's La Bandera. So here we have the Live Bait shack as the equivalent of Panama's in Quai des Brumes: a place of refuge, a home from home; Panama himself is refashioned as the Claude Rains character: tee-totaller and philosopher; while Mitchell is a composite of Lucien (out to avenge a murder) and Quart-Vittel (drunkard). What with Gabin's awkward English delivery and the expressionistic settings, nothing quite coheres as a picture of contemporary California, but it is nevertheless a strangely endearing film, with Lupino impressing in particular, and it belongs with works like Nightmare Alley as one of those Hollywood oddities.
Country: US
Technical: bw 94m
Director: Archie Mayo, Fritz Lang (uncredited)
Cast: Jean Gabin, Ida Lupino, Claude Rains, Thomas Mitchell, Jerome Cowan
Synopsis:
In a small Californian port, the lives of an itinerant drinker and the more or less parasitic hangers-on around him take a different course when he rescues a waif who is trying to drown herself.
Review:
This extraordinary Fox melodrama attempts to marry Zola archetypes with poetic realism and comes out as a remake of Le Quai des Brumes in all but name. It would seem that in not knowing what to do with Gabin, the studios essentially repackaged two of his 30s successes, the other being Duvivier's La Bandera. So here we have the Live Bait shack as the equivalent of Panama's in Quai des Brumes: a place of refuge, a home from home; Panama himself is refashioned as the Claude Rains character: tee-totaller and philosopher; while Mitchell is a composite of Lucien (out to avenge a murder) and Quart-Vittel (drunkard). What with Gabin's awkward English delivery and the expressionistic settings, nothing quite coheres as a picture of contemporary California, but it is nevertheless a strangely endearing film, with Lupino impressing in particular, and it belongs with works like Nightmare Alley as one of those Hollywood oddities.
Country: US
Technical: bw 94m
Director: Archie Mayo, Fritz Lang (uncredited)
Cast: Jean Gabin, Ida Lupino, Claude Rains, Thomas Mitchell, Jerome Cowan
Synopsis:
In a small Californian port, the lives of an itinerant drinker and the more or less parasitic hangers-on around him take a different course when he rescues a waif who is trying to drown herself.
Review:
This extraordinary Fox melodrama attempts to marry Zola archetypes with poetic realism and comes out as a remake of Le Quai des Brumes in all but name. It would seem that in not knowing what to do with Gabin, the studios essentially repackaged two of his 30s successes, the other being Duvivier's La Bandera. So here we have the Live Bait shack as the equivalent of Panama's in Quai des Brumes: a place of refuge, a home from home; Panama himself is refashioned as the Claude Rains character: tee-totaller and philosopher; while Mitchell is a composite of Lucien (out to avenge a murder) and Quart-Vittel (drunkard). What with Gabin's awkward English delivery and the expressionistic settings, nothing quite coheres as a picture of contemporary California, but it is nevertheless a strangely endearing film, with Lupino impressing in particular, and it belongs with works like Nightmare Alley as one of those Hollywood oddities.