DVD of a Restored "Pepe Le Moko" (1937), the First Cinema Noir

"Pépé Le Moko" is a legendary 1937 atmospheric cinema noir set in the Casbah of Algiers, directed by Julien Duvivier (who directed the Vivien Leigh "Anna Karenina" and "Tales of Manhattan" in English) that Graham Greene said raised the thriller movie to the level of poetry. After a brief run in America copies were bought up and the film was remade in 1938 as "Algiers," with Charles Boyer playing the doomed Pépé originated by the blockish if (herein) somewhat foppish Jean Gabin. Rialto struck a newly print and had Lenny Borger write new subtitles and Criterion transferred it to DVD after a theatrical rerelease. (The earlier VHS version should be avoided!)

The film opens in a very German Expressionist collage of staircases and alleys and then lands in central police headquarters where a French police official is attempting to prod the Algiers police to capture the bank-robber who escaped France. The Algiers police officials underline the "Who let him escape France?" question and explain that they could not take anyone out of the maze of the Casbah. Pépé is presented as a sort of folk hero (Robin Hood?) in the multinational Casbah (heavy on the orientalism in contrast to French rationality).

Pépé feels imprisoned in the Casbah. He more than feels it: he cannot leave the Casbah and is not content with his dark (dark-skinned and underlit) companion Inès. A glittering Parisian beauty Gaby (Mireille Balin) comes slumming, wearing an absurdly extravagant amount of jewelry (and key-lit like Garbo). Rather than steal her jewels, Pépé sees her as the goddess of Paris. On a return liaison they recite Paris Métro stops to each other, though I wondered how often someone dressed and shod like Pépé rode the Métro. (But his elegantly tailored clothes are immune to the dirt of the Casbah...)

The criminal is ultra-romanticized, while the policeman who knows he will eventually capture Pépé is neither tailored nor romantic and is given the odious name Slimane (wryly played by Lucas Gridoux).

There is a shoot-out and a shoot-in (neither very convincing), betrayals, and disappointment in the Casbah; machinations outside it. It's hard to tell whether lusting after tourists or spurning native paramours is more dangerous. The only femme who is not fatale is a former Parisian cabaret singer who is so acculturated to the Casbah that I didn't realize she was not native to it until midway through the film.

The French version seems more racist and more sexist than the American remake. Hedy Lamarr's Gaby is quanta more glamorous than Mireille Balin's and more aware that her jewelry is being appraised. There are those who prefer Gabin's Pépé, but I think that Boyer did the despair at being trapped better and was the grand master of Doomed Lovers. I don't remember his Pépé being as absurdly dressed, either. Gabin is not merely chipper after meeting Gaby, but sings on the rooftops, whereas Boyer entertains no illusions of escape. Gabin's Pépé is more impulsive than Boyer's, though both know what they are doing, even when raging.

I also prefer Joseph Callilea's portrayal of the patient but relentless Inspector Slimane in the Hollywood version.

Still, it is good to finally be able to see the original "Pépé Le Moko."

In addition to a theatrical trailer, the Criterion DVD includes a 1962 interview with director Julien Duvivier, parts of a documentary "Remembering Jean Gabin," a short about influences of the movie (starting with that on "Algiers") and a booklet with excerpts from Ginette Vincendeau's BFI Classics volume on the movie.

Gabin here and elsewhere prefigures the doomed heroes of Jean-Pierre Melville (such as "Le samourai" and "Le cercle rouge") and Godard ("Breathless") and Duvivier probably added some French fatalism to the heavily German expressionist sources of the noirs of the 1940s (not to underestimate the American gangster pictures, especially "Public Enemy" and the original "Scarface" both on American noirs and on "Pépé Le Moko"). "Pépé Le Moko" remains an interesting film as well as a historical curiosity. It and the 1938 Quai de brumes, also starring Gabin, seem to me to predate the supposed first noirs of 1941 (The Maltese Falcon et al.)

I prefer the even wearier post-WWII Jean Gabin as older (and tougher) gangsters in Touchez pas au grisbi and Any Number Can Win.