Well Deserved Praise

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A different way of telling a story

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

I watch this from time to time; each time it's a little more entertaining. It's not as good as some of the other later Jean Gabin films - Touche Pas au Grisbi, or Traversee de Paris - but it's a lot more relaxed. Jean Gabin is a sad piece of gambling wreckage, living from horserace to horserace by bullying his clientele to take shoddy tips. His pride and bluster are still intact, though, and what baldfaced lies he gets away with! The snapshot views of 1962 Paris are nice too - the Bois de Boulogne walkers, French horseracing, even a woman learning to cook pheasant from a TV show (and I thought that "la bonne cuisine" was a French genetic trait.....).