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Dédée d'Anvers
1948 Drama / Romance
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Credits
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Director: Yves Allégret
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Script: Jacques Sigurd, Yves Allégret, based on a novel by Henri La Barthe
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Photo: Jean Bourgoin
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Music: Jacques Besse
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Cast: Bernard Blier (Monsieur René),
Simone Signoret (Dédée),
Marcello Pagliero (Francesco),
Marcel Dalio (Marco),
Marcel Dieudonné (Le trafiquant),
Mia Mendelson (La prostituée flamande),
Marcelle Arnold (La prostituée au perroquet),
Claude Farell (La prostituée allemande),
Denise Clair (La patronne du "Kaffee Karel"),
Gabriel Gobin (Le diamantaire),
Jo Van Cottom (Paul),
Jane Marken (Germaine)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 100 min; B&W
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Aka: Dedee; Woman of Antwerp
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Summary
Dédée is a young prostitute who works in a bar in the Belgian port of Anvers.
Her boyfriend, Marco, is the bar’s bouncer, a man despised by all, even Dedée.
One day, the prostitute meets an Italian sailor, Francesco, and realises that she is in
love for the first time. The couple decide to start a new life together. However,
Marco has other ideas…
Review
Simone Signoret gives a notable performance in this atmospheric French film noir, which
was directed by her husband at the time, Yves Allégret. The seemingly vulnerable
woman with a hard interior and a nasty streak of malice is the character that Signoret
plays particularly well, here as in so many subsequent films (notably Couzot’s
Les Diaboliques). Other significant
contributions are made by Bernard Blier and Marcel Dalio, two great actors who were well
served by this kind of intense melodrama. Similarities with the poetic realist films
of the late 1930s are apparent, with the harbour setting closely resembling that of Marcel
Carné’s Le
Quai des brumes (1938). By the late 1940s, this style of film, with its
oppressive mood and pessimistic outcome, was most definitely going out of fashion.
Whilst the film’s lack of originality counts heavily against it, its shocking film
noir ending gives it a truly visceral impact.
© James Travers 2004
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