User Reviews

... I WANT to like you but you don't make it easy. To be fair to all concerned they were working in a genre - poetic realism - which had just about run out of gas by 1948, even the co-founders, Jacques Prevert and Marcel Carne had called it a day after their mega flop of 1946 Les Portes de la nuit (hailed today as the masterpiece it is) so that shots of misty harbors and the odd 'cluttered' set a la Von Sternberg seem at times like hat of the most ancient kind. Yves Allegret was a fine journeyman director and there's not much wrong with actors like Bernard Blier, Marcel Dalio and Allegret's then wife, Simone Signoret who between them make this watchable and enjoyable if not, alas, memorable.

Dedee d' Anvers – 1948 This French film noir is set in the Belgium port of Antwerp just after WW2.

Simone Signoret is a "working girl" who lives and works out of the Big Moon bar and brothel. The Big Moon Club is just off the docks in the red light district of the city. The club is run by Bernard Blier, a tough nut who has a soft spot for Signoret. He would like her to dump her rat of a pimp, Marcel Dalio. Dalio is a nasty piece of work, not above using lit cigarettes on Signoret if her cash flow seems light.

Marcel Pagliero now shows on the scene. Pagliero is an old friend of Big Moon owner Blier. The two had been involved in a smuggling racket before the war. Pagliero is now the Captain of a small freighter running guns and various other cargoes of "coal" to ports in North Africa and the Middle East.

Of course Signoret and Pagliero meet and both feel an attraction to the other. The two spend the night together and the sparks fly. Blue Moon owner Blier sees this, and tells his friend to take Miss Signoret with him when he leaves port. Even though she is a real money maker for the bar, pulling in drunks etc, Blier would like the woman to have a better life. Pagliero likes the idea and asks the woman to join him.

Signoret is somewhat reluctant to make the move as she is frightened of pimp Dalio's violent temper. Club owner Blier, tells the woman to do the smart thing and take Pagliero up on his offer. Blier, no slouch in the violence department himself, tells Signoret he will deal with Dalio.

Signoret is now beaming with new found hope and emotion. She can't wait for the next morning when they will set sail. Pagliero just needs to load up the last of the illegal cargo that night, and they can leave at 3 in the morning.

Needless to say there is a large oily fly in the ointment. The fly is Dalio, who is less than amused that Bleir has tossed him out of the Big Moon, and told him that Signoret is no longer his. Dalio is between a rock and a hard place. He has been trying to arrange a deal for some black market drugs. He has paid money in advance, and now, without Signoret's income, he will lose the lot.

Dalio hits several bars and polishes off a large bottle of gin trying to drown his sorrows. The now sodden thug decides to get even. He takes his piece and wanders down to the docks. Pagliero has just finished loading his ship and is standing alone on the dark dock having a smoke. Dalio wanders out of the shadows and fires 5 times. Pagliero drops to the pavement dead. Dalio, drops his automatic to the ground, turns and heads back into the night.

At the same time, back at the Big Moon, Signoret has finished packing her few belongings. Most of her stuff she gives to the other girls of the club. Blier closes for the night and arranges to drive Miss Signoret down to see her true love.

Needless to say, they drive up to the ship and find Pagliero's lifeless body sprawled on the rain soaked pavement. Signoret is silent as she looks at Pagliero. That is till she sees Dalio's gun laying there beside the corpse. She picks it up and shows it to Blier. Into the car they climb and drive off. They start hitting all the still open dives around the waterfront.

Someone tells them Dalio had gone to the train station to grab the morning train to Amsterdam. Blier hits the station and hustles out the still drunk Dalio. They toss him in the car and drive down to the docks. The slime begs for his life and cries for mercy. A pistol butt to the head soon quiets him. Signoret then tosses the piece in the water.

Blier and Signoret drag the out cold Dalio onto the road, climb into the car, then, both steer as they drive over Dalio's head. They continue down the road into the fog and back to the Big Moon.

This film just drips with atmosphere, it features fog filled docks, seedy bars, dark lanes with only the odd street lamp here and there for illumination. The performances are all top rate with Signoret and Dalio in particular shining.

This is the third time I have caught this one, and it gets better every time. (It helped that this time I had a much better viewing copy) The director is Yves Allegret. His work includes, Une si Jolie petite Plage, Maneges, Les Orgueilleux and L'Ambitieuse.

Left breathless by her appearance in the Film Noir Casque d'Or,I started trying to remember another Noir with Simone Signoret that a fellow IMDber had reviewed. Struggling to find the title, (with the plot details being ones that lingered in the mind) I was thankfully to get some kind help from a fellow IMDber who helped me to at last identify the title,which led to me meeting Dédée d'Anvers.

The plot:

Working for years in Monsieur René's night club/brothel, Dédée has learnt to never get her hopes up of leaving the place,with her partner Marco,also acting as her hard bargaining pimp. Crossing paths at the dock yard, Dédée meets Francesco,who has recently sailed in. Falling for each other, Dédée begins to hope that the high seas will give her freedom from Marco and the Film Noir doom in René's residence.

View on the film:

Clad in a shiny Film Noir leather coat,the gorgeous Simone Signoret gives a magnificent performance as Dédée.Used to hearing all the sweet nothings yelled down the street,Signoret expertly reveals the wall that Dédée has built herself to stop anyone getting past a skin-deep level. Warming to Francesco,Signoret finely balances a Femme Fatale bluntness in sharp off the cuff dialogue,with a fragility cracked by Francesco opening himself up to Dédée.Waiting at the docks for Dédée, Marcello Pagliero gives a magnetic performance as Film Noir loner Francesco. Prominently featuring his blue-collar edges, Pagliero breaks Francesco stone face to unveil a nervousness over leaving his Noir loner past behind by opening up to someone for the first time.

Made a year before he and Signoret got divorced,co-writer/(along with Jacques Sigurd) director Yves Allégret & cinematographer Jean Bourgoin breath in the sea atmosphere with ragged tracking shots following Dédée and Francesco down each murky Noir street littering the town. Pulling the Femme Fatale sparks from Dédée, Allégret enters the brothel with poetic style,dipping into Dédée's mind with elegant first person shots which shatter against the lingering shadows cast over Dédée's face during the ghostly final.

Bringing Henri La Barthe's novel in from the sea,the screenplay by Allégret and Sigurd fills Rene's brothel with hard-nosed thugs and dames,where one misplaced word in the excellent dialogue can set off a knuckleduster fuse. Initially making the exchanges between Dédée and Francesco restrained,the writers give a rich sincerity to their vulnerabilities being exposed in the flowering romance,which makes Francesco's scream with passion to get off the Film Noir ship with Dédée.

Simone Signoret is, indisputably, one of the greatest actresses ever.

In DEDÉE D'ANVERS, directed by then hubby Yves Allegret, she posts one of her finest performances as a hooker on Antwerp Harbor, in Belgium. Her acting is redolent with keen observation of detail. Her behavior and her conversation reflect the bread and butter of a whore's life. Her desire to seize the opportunity to get out of that world when she sees Pagliero and falls in love with him is all too real and understandable.

But the life of a prostitute is habit-forming, just as the life of a smuggler like Pagliero. In the end, they commit murder together and return to the brothel, suggesting that she will continue to serve as hooker, only under a different pimp. The fog at the end seems to eat the car they are driving, with which they have just flattened Dalio, her unpleasant former pimp. That thick fog is part of the atmosphere that constantly surrounds the characters, one of slime, grime, and sweat.

Signoret reigns supreme in the acting stakes but Blier, Pagliero and, in particular, Dalio, as Simone's lying, gambling, and violent pimp are top drawer, too.

Curiously, perhaps the person with the most decent character is Blier, as owner of the brothel. As much as Signoret earns him good money, he is decent enough to know that she deserves to go free. He puts her interests above his money-making needs, and that is perhaps the spiritual grace in this oppressively dark film.

Allegret's direction, Sigurd's screenplay, and Bourgoin's cinematography are simply awesome.

Strongly recommended. 9/10