User Reviews

This is par excellence the "film maudit" .When it was released ,it got unanimous thumb downs by the unions.The depiction of the dockers' life was not particularly watered down:they were brutes,barflies,they beat their wives,their wives were playing around,you name it...Some compare Pagliero's movie to some novels by Zola which scandalized the readers from the nineteenth century (essentially "L'Assommoir") .If my memory serves me well;Elia Kazan had the same problem with his movie dealing with the dockers which I use for the title of my comment,and however,one of the main characters was a priest!

No priest in "Un Homme Marche Dans La Ville " but the depiction of a jungle on a harbor ;Ginette Leclerc has here her best post-war part as a woman who falls in love with her husband 's best friend (and it's not really reciprocal) .Her little boy epitomizes all the sufferings a child can endure:no tears,no melodramatic scenes ,but in his eyes you can read an infinite sadness .When her mummy puts him on the train,he is no more than a piece of luggage.

SPOILER:when the tragedy is resolved ,Pagliero ends his movie with a long panoramic shot over the harbor where life goes on,where the sirens of the boat lugubriously wail in the wind.

It's possible that there have been others with which I am not familiar but I know of only two French movies set in Le Havre; the first one was Quai des Brumes, a masterpiece from the team of Jacques Prevert and Marcel Carne and this, the second which, had I seen it first I would have said would do until a masterpiece comes along. Alas ... One of the two posters found echoes of the Italian neo-Realist movement which isn't surprising given that Marcel Paglaro co-scripted Paisa and wrote and directed Rome, Open City. The British born writer-director has fashioned here a sort of neo-Realist movie with the rough edges smoothed just a little - a once-over lightly with the plane if you will - and has drawn exceptional performances from his cast including leading lady Ginette Leclerc - who for some reason is totally uncredited on the print I have on DVD - and Robert Dalman as her brutish husband. A veteran of well over 200 films only a handful of which (Quai des Orfevres, Les Diaboliques, Fantomas) were screened outside France Dalman turns in what has to be a lifetime best performance as the frustrated dock worker. There is a fine richness about this film that will reward anyone perceptive enough to seek it out.