User Reviews

Despite a Best Director award at a minor (Karlovy) Film Festival Louis Daquin failed to distinguish himself in French cinema or indeed any other and his penchant for adapting successful writers (he followed this from Jan de Hartog with Maupassant's Bel Ami) never paid off in big bucks for try as he might he could never line up all three cherries on the slot machine. Having said that he has a decent stab at adapting de Hartog's morality story and is well served by top-billed Pierre Brasseur and Louis Seigner and who knows what might have happened if another de Hartog effort, The Four-Poster, had not hit the screen around the same time. To nutshell the plot Brasseur is the skipper of a tramp steamer ferrying a cargo of Jewish refugees to Israel and, when they run into Visa problems in Alexandria, on to America. Yeah, I know, not the most pulse-quickening plot that ever came down the pike but what can I tell you. Interesting about covers it.

Louis Daquin made one great work " Le Voyageur de la Toussaint" but the rest of his filmography has sunk into oblivion."Maître Après Dieu" tells the story of a captain ,his crew and a group of Jews fleeing Germany en route to Egypt.There ,they are refused because their visas are not valid.So the captain decides to take them to America...

The film suffers from the obvious low budget.Recreating Africa,a German harbor ,Alexandria ,it is more than the studios can afford.Besides,in "Manon" (1949) HG Clouzot had already depicted a ship full of Jews ,and Louis Daquin ,with all his finer feelings,is no match for the one French director who has got two movies in the IMDb top 250.

However,the film is not uninteresting:Daquin put the weight on Pierre Brasseur and he carried it.His portrayal of a generous captain is excellent.Do not miss,in the first sequence ,his appearance as God the Father ,about to steal the coconuts from the missionaries.

I'm not a specialist but it seems to me that Daquin and his script writers mix the Christian and the Jewish religions.But it does not matter:the captain has become a new Mosis en route to the promised land.Reading the Bible,a thing he has never done before,he makes a deal with God!If He does not help him (= If He does not send his angel )save his protégés ,he will ask for Hell's help.Even the priest does not believe in Angels anymore.And against all odds ,the angels will come,in their own peculiar way.

Beautiful score by Jean Wiener.