LE JOUR SE LÈVE

(1939, Marcel Carné) As a blind man ascends stairs, a shot rings out, a body hits the floor, the police arrive, and the flashbacks begin: sandblaster Jean Gabin dallies with both a shop girl and dog-act vaudevillian Jules Berry’s ex-assistant Arletty after she emerges nude from the shower — but each sports the brooch the slimy Berry bestows on his conquests. Approx. 93 min. 35mm

REVIEWS

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“Perhaps the finest of the French poetic melodramas. A definitive example of sensuous, atmospheric moviemaking — you feel that you’re breathing the air that Gabin breathes.”
– Pauline Kael

"Its influence on what would one day be known as film noir is boundless."
– Time Out New York

“Gabin is always the pure self, uncorrupted by culture, relying only on the force of his integrity and his singleness of purpose.  In a world of compromises he must be doomed, spectacularly doomed.”
– Dudley Andrew, Rediscovering French Film

“Clara is above all Arletty, and from the actress to the character portrayed, the osmosis of an inner existence takes place that is derived not only from the style of the performance”
– Jacques Siclier, Rediscovering French Film