La Marie du port (1950) AKA Marie of the Port

Marcel Carné’s ‘Children of Paradise’ (1945) is considered one of the best films ever made. The screenplay is by Jacques Prévert with whom Carné collaborated on several films. By 1950 Carné’s reputation was in decline. ‘Gates of the Night’ (1946), the film that followed ‘Children of Paradise’, and which was the last film that was a full Carné/Prévert collaboration, was not received favorably by critics nor did it do well at the box office. The New Wave filmmakers dismissed Carné as old hat. ‘La Marie du port’ is the story of an older man, Henri (Jean Gabin), who owns a hotel and a cinema. He also has a penchant for young women and a very cynical attitude towards romantic love. When his live-in girlfriend’s father dies they travel to a small fishing village for the funeral. His girlfriend’s younger sister Marie catches his eye and she views him as a means to escape her predicament when the rest of her family moves to the country and she decides to stay in the village on her own. Henri buys a fishing boat there as a pretext to return to the village to see Marie. Visually this is the work of an accomplished filmmaker and is worth seeing for the compositions and poetic interludes. The performances are convincing, especially Gabin’s but the story, though a good exploration of the subtle expectations involved in romantic relationships, isn’t very profound or enlightening. 7/10 Stars