Directed by Jean Renoir • 1936 • France
Starring Jean Gabin, Louis Jouvet, Suzy Prim
Jean Renoir’s fascinating adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play softens the bleak social realism of the source material thanks to the director’s gently humanist, distinctly Gallic touch. Comedy and drama, love and death intertwine in a dingy flophouse where the petty thief Pépel (Jean Gabin) finds himself caught a love triangle with two sisters while striking up an improbable friendship with a nobleman (a wonderfully amusing Louis Jouvet) who soon falls on hard times himself.
Up Next in Season 1
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They Were Five
Directed by Julien Duvivier • 1936 • France
Starring Jean Gabin, Charles Vanel, Raymond AimosWith more money comes more problems in this spirited comedic drama, a tribute to everyman camaraderie inspired by the optimistic socialism of the French Popular Front movement. Gallic cinema icons Jean ...
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The End of the Day
Directed by Julien Duvivier • 1939 • France
Starring Victor Francen, Michel Simon, Louis JouvetA bittersweet reflection on aging, mortality, and the memories and regrets that make up a lifetime, this affecting tragicomedy centers on a coterie of broke, washed-up actors now living in a retiremen...
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Such a Pretty Little Beach
Directed by Yves Allégret • 1949 • France
Starring Madeleine Robinson, Gérard Philipe, Jean ServaisThis moodily poetic noir unfolds in a seaside resort in the winter offseason where an enigmatic man (Gérard Philipe), on the run after committing a murder, checks into a flophouse hotel where he w...
