Les Portes de la nuit / Gates of the Night / Marcel Carné / 1946

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Les Portes de la nuit

1946 Drama / Romance

Credits

Director: Marcel Carné
Script: Jacques Prévert
Photo: Philippe Agostini
Music: Joseph Kosma
Cast: Pierre Brasseur (Georges), Serge Reggiani (Guy Sénéchal), Yves Montand (Jean Diego), Nathalie Nattier (Malou), Saturnin Fabre (Monsieur Sénéchal), Raymond Bussières (Raymond Lécuyer), Jean Vilar (Le clochard), Sylvia Bataille (Claire Lécuyer), Jane Marken (Mme Germaine), Dany Robin (Étiennette)
Country: France
Language: French
Runtime: 100 min; B&W
Aka: Gates of the Night

Summary

February 1945. In the Paris underground, a manual worker, Jean Diego, meets a tramp who introduces himself as Fate. The tramp foretells that the worker will fall in love with a beautiful woman and that his next few hours will be very dramatic. To Jean’s incredulity the prophecy begins to come true when he meets Malou, a young woman fleeing from an unhappy marriage. Malou’s brother Guy is also warned by the same mysterious tramp that he is destined for an unhappy and imminent death. Ignoring the warning, Guy accosts Malou’s husband Georges and reveals that Malou has fallen in love with Jean. Suspecting that Jean may be armed, Georges reluctantly accepts the gun that Guy offers him...

Review

Les Portes de la nuit marked the beginning of a dramatic decline in the fortunes of its director Marcel Carné. Prior to and during World War II, Carné was one of the most respected and popular directors of his generation in France, responsible for such uncontested masterpieces as Hôtel du Nord (1938) and Les Enfants du paradis (1945). His distinctive noirish cinematic style, termed poetic realism, was entirely appropriate for the gloomy latter years of the 1930s and early 1940s. With Les Portes de la nuit, Carné persevered with this tried and trusted formula but soon discovered the public mood was not with him. In the aftermath of a devastating and humiliating war, the poetic realist style reflected a dark pessimistic view of life which most French people found hard to stomach.

Another factor which may account for the commercial failure of the film is its lack of a strong lead actor and actress. Originally, Carné had slated Jean Gabin and his real-life lover Marlene Dietrich to play the principal roles in the film. When the couple decide instead to take the lead in Georges Lacombe’s equally ill-fated Martin Roumagnac (1946), Carné had to re-cast. Inexplicably, he chose an unknown young actor, Yves Montand, to play the leading male role, with a comparatively unknown actress Nathalie Nattier opposite him. Although Yves Montand went on to become a major star in France, as both an actor and a singer, he is miscast in this film, and he fails to bring the emotional force needed to give the drama any real impact. Instead, the film is dominated by the presence of its excellent supporting cast, notably Jean Vilar (who is magnificent as the mysterious fortune-telling tramp), with pleasing contributions from Pierre Brasseur and Serge Reggiani.

Although some sequences in this film are extraordinarily beautiful and poetic, it lacks the cohesion and force of Carné’s earlier collaborations with his screenwriter, Jacques Prévert. Perhaps they were losing interest in the poetic realist approach, or maybe they found it hard to apply to a realistic contemporary setting after their previous historical outings (Les Visiteurs du soir and Les Enfants du paradis). Whatever the reason, Les Portes de la nuit is the least successful and least rewarding of the films from the Carné-Prévert stable. Sadly, it was also to be the last. The artistic duo planned to work together again on another film, Fleur de l'âge, but the cancellation of this film put a definitive end to their partnership. Poetic realism was dead.

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