Pepe le Moko

Films/DVD Asylum

Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star.

The 1937 film with Jean Gabin starts lazy, and quickly sets the tone for a disaster of a movie. Even Gabin's usual charm is mostly lost between the mud walls of that horrible place... Casbah. For at least 45 minutes you struggle to find any redeaming values in that work. You sit there mumbling... Ah, enough already of that nonsense, bring the babe in the picture! She enters and the pace picks up. Gabin gets off his behind and starts acting just enough to get things going. Her icy cold beauty raises the temperature, as predictable and cliche-loaded as her role is. She ain't human, her rival Ines is, and Jean is hopelessly lost between the two - indecisive in cutting the old ties, and not daring enough to delve into new ones - so the momentum is lost, he icy flame is trembling with not too much emotion shown except for the diamond bracelets, and the old flame is bursting with anger and hurt feelings... this spells trouble by all laws of traditional movie making, man Jean, you let your touch leave you and you are left with nothing more than the angry fury behind you and cops on your trail, and you are nothing but a moth and we all know where and how the moth's life ends.
Truth is - there is no glimmer of hope in the whole movie, not with the tone set by the opening scenes, and there is no suspense, as all fates are already clearly written on the dirty walls.
Why then waste good hour and a half? Jean is certainly not his best - him in his early overweight thirties, with only the hint of the future charm and talent. Mireille Balin is bound to leave many men speechless, and she does that to Jean quite well too, thank you, but somehow the critical mass is never achieved, the air-fuel mixture never ignited, so it simply dissipates, and by the time the final stroke comes you are restlessly wanting for a resolution - ANY resolution would do... a happy one with lots of kissed and her thick lipstick all over his cheeks would do great, but lacking that a bullet to the head will not be out of questions either.
Neither happens, but the word FIN appears before you are about to leave the room to get another beer, so all in all a reasonable second half, boring first one, all that and a couple of beers and you are ready to close the DVD box and think of what's on IFC.

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Topic - Pepe le Moko - Victor Khomenko 19:06:50 09/28/03 (2)

Thanks For Great Review! Will Check It Out. <Nt> - AudioHead 09:16:43 09/29/03 (0)

Re: Pepe le Moko - patrickU 00:53:28 09/29/03 (0)

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