La bella brigata

One for nostalgia buffs. One of a handful of movies that epitomise French cinema in the thirties. Gabin, Charles Vanel and Viviane Romance proved durable, indeed, Romance was something of a French Jeanne Crain/Linda Darnell in the forties while Vanel scored heavily in La Salaire du Peur and Les Diaboliques. Gabin, of course, proved most durable and iconic; this was made around the time of Pepe Le Moko and still to come were Quai des Brumes, Le jour se leve, and then the great post-war stuff, Touchez pas au grisbi, Le Chat, La Traversee de Paris,etc. First and last this is a Depression movie, made and released in the heart of the international slump. But it's also about comaraderie, how strong it is yet how fragile. When they don't have change of a match the 5 friends ARE strong but once they hit the numbers on the National Lottery it all begins to crumble from the inside. It's a curious mixture of the lyrical - the pastoral scenes along the Marne that would be echoed in Casque d'Or, the sentimental songs, and Gabin in full throat is something to hear - and the pragmatic - money corrupts and frailty, thy name is woman - but against the odds it works. Duvivier doesn't get too much attention today yet he remains a key player in French cinema.

La belle equipe or They Were Five is often praised as the highest achievement of Julien Duvivier. It's French poetic realism at its finest - a style whose most remembered representatives are: L'Atalante (1934) by Jean Vigo and Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937). When Charles Spaak had just finished the screenplay of La belle equipe the master Jean Renoir got actually very interested in it and wanted to film it, but Julien Duvivier had already bought the rights for it. One can't help but wonder how different the film might have been if Renoir would've filmed it. At least it would've gained much more reputation, but no one can no whether it would have been better, because Duvivier was a very talented filmmaker as well. La belle equipe represents the French optimism (1935-36), it's also a true national film and an interesting contemporary description of the working class.

A group of five penniless workers wander around the streets of Paris. They live in a lousy block of flats, whose landlord put the light out immediately by 9 pm. One night when they are playing cards in the darkness, a pleasant message arrives: they've just won 100, 000 Francs with the lottery. After a quick enthusiasm they realize that the amount won't last through their whole life: so they decide to buy and reconstruct a small resort out of town. Eventually wealth and fortune start to rip the group apart and unpredictable events begin to occur.

Julien Duvivier first shows the miserable life of the workers: he shows them hanging in the streets, leaning on dirty walls and hiding from cops. The happy twist seems quite surreal, but the series of events it occurs is far more interesting. As I mentioned above the film represents the optimism in France during that time: is it possible for the working class to go and work on their own outside of the society? It's quite hard to know what Duvivier thought himself because he filmed two different endings: a pessimist ending for the bourgeoisie and an optimist one for the working class, which is far more well known and often the ending distributed in Europe.

No matter what Duvivier himself thought, - is it possible in this society for the working class to stand up and do what they've dreamed of, La belle equipe is a poetic description of its time. It beautifully exhales the optimism of the short era in France before the WWII, which Jean Renoir tried to prevent with his poetic masterpiece La Grande Illusion. La belle equipe is a true national film.

I am adding to this commentary in June 2016 to point out to any fans of this film that, almost unbelievably after waiting such a long time, it is now actually available in France (since June 1st) on Blu-ray and DVD. This is an issue by Pathé, together with certain others of Duvivier's films and notably the (in)famous "Voici Le Temps Des Assassins". The set comprises a Blu-ray (Zones A B C) plus a DVD (Zone 2 - Europe Only), the film has been remastered and is with French Language Audio AND a choice of French or English Subtitles). This should bring a lot of pleasure to a lot of people who have been awaiting this reissue for many years : shot in 1936 on the Banks of The Marne river some 5 miles from Paris, La Belle Equipe constituted a milestone in French Cinema. Coinciding with the advent of the " Front Populaire ", the film is today remembered for the scenes in the guinguette and the beautiful valse musette " Quand on s'promène au bord de l'eau " sung by actor Jean Gabin and accompanied by roving accordionist Albert Deprince. The film is about a group of factory workers who win the lottery and club together to construct a guingette ( dance hall ) on the banks of the Marne between Nogent and Joinville. All starts well but quarrels develop and women get in the way ! There are in fact two endings, a happy one reluctantly made by director Duvivier to please the public,and a pessimistic one which was the director's own personal choice. For some strange reason the pessimistic ending is always subtitled in German !!! The new issue of the film includes both the pessimistic and the optimistic endings.You may visit today by riverboat the area where the film was shot and until a few years ago could see the actual remains of the "guinguette" built specially for the film !!

"The camaraderie we five shared was, I don't know...it was like the smell of bread." "I'm your cake. It's better!"

They Were Five, or in the French title, The Beautiful Team, has a group of five down-on-their luck friends win a share of the lottery, enabling them to open up a guinguette, which is a riverside open-air restaurant. The five have an easy camaraderie with one another, though they were also a little annoying early on, expecting their landlord to put up with not paying their rent and demanding improvements. The film is directed by Julien Duvivier and stars Jean Gabin so it's certainly a quality production, but to be honest it was Viviane Romance playing Gina who was the best part for me.

Gina is separated from her husband (Charles Vanel), but upon hearing of his windfall, turns up to get 2,000 francs out of him. "I'll pay you for it," she tells him with a smile, meaning she'll toss some sex into the deal. When Gabin goes to get the money back at her apartment, one adorned with an array of nude photos of herself on the wall, she opens her robe and, smiling flirtatiously, says "Can't you see I'm in my undies?" and more suggestively, "Anything else you'd like? Go ahead. Help yourself." He of course does. Viviane Romance is fantastic here, even if the character is pretty flimsy (if not offensive).

This sets in motion a chain of events that spells doom for the guinguette, and it's echoed in other ways that a woman creates trouble for the pals. The first guy leaves after being admonished by Gabin's character for somewhat openly being attracted to one of the other's girlfriend (Micheline Cheirel), in a little bit of foreshadowing and a load of hypocrisy. The man with the girlfriend is hiding from the police, but is given away when she calls out to him, resulting in him being served with a deportation order (though they leave together, blessed by her grandma, so it's not a negative characterization). A third friend dies after falling off the roof, an accident mercifully not caused by a woman, and suddenly They Were Five has become They Were Two. They've gone from a partnership where one proudly proclaims "This is a republic where all citizens are presidents" to being rivals for a "loose" woman, and it seems this fall from grace is laid mostly at the doorstep of the woman. This feeling was cemented when Gabin's character calls her a bitch and hits her in the face, which (ugh, of course) turns her on. "I didn't think you were a man," she gushes with a smile, looking up into his eyes from an inch away.

The lack of nuance in this character aside, the storytelling is solid and the black and white cinematography is beautiful, especially in scenes with the trees by the river. There are also little bits like Gabin singing in a reverie, and the friends cheating to essentially steal items out of an olde time claw machine (the quality of which were considerably higher than the ones in arcades today!). There is also a rather intense ending (I saw the original, pessimistic version), one that's filmed well and has some fine acting from Gabin and Vanel, even if it was a little abrupt.

But its well done, written, played. Good story line. But 75 years is a long time.