This is one of those movies where a little thing leads to a cover-up, which leads to bigger things, which have to be covered up in their turn, and so on. It's a working-class morality tale, a cross between melodrama and film noir, and brilliantly compelling.
Lantier (Gabin) is an engine driver. Together with his stoker Pecqueux (Carette), a lugubrious man with a cigarette always on his lips and a girl in every depot, they speed though the countryside in a celebrated opening sequence that captures the power and awesomeness of the great steam locomotive (and is an early use of shaky cam).
They have time off at the station while the locomotive is repaired. Lantier visits his family where we learn he gets murderous impulses he can hardly control. He nearly strangles the pretty young Flore (Brunoy), stopping only when a train rushes by on the nearby tracks. In fact, the trains are his lifesaver. He knows he is safe from his impulses when he is with "Lison", as he calls his locomotive.
Back at the station, the station-master Roubaud (Ledoux) tells off a man with a dog. - What's the problem with my dog? - The regulations don't allow dogs in the compartments. - I don't like your tone of voice. Do you know who I am? - I don't need to know. I make no distinctions among passengers.
Alas, it is a sugar baron who can make trouble for Roubaud. He asks his wife Severine (Simon) to pull strings with her wealthy godfather Grandmorin (Berlioz). They can combine this with a shopping trip to Paris.
In Paris they stay with Victoria, Severine's mother's friend, who is the lavatory attendant at the station and also Pecqueux's wife. It illustrates one of the strengths of the movie, which shows well the lives and esprit de corps of this group of working men who must move from place to place and stay in railway housing with their colleagues. They are a friendly bunch who know each other and stick up for each other.
The perils of having a wife who is too young and pretty for you! In Paris middle-aged Roubaud learns Grandmorin is Severine's lover. Enraged at being cuckolded, Roubaud gets Severine to invite Grandmorin on a train trip, where the couple murder the wealthy man. Lantier is on the train and sees them, but does not give them away. Severine starts an affair with Lantier to keep him quiet, and things go downhill from there.
The train photography, Jean Gabin's acting, and the glimpses of railway peoples' lives were the stand-outs for me, but in all departments this movie stands comparison with anything made 75 years later. It's my first Jean Renoir film I've seen. It won't be my last.
Lantier (Gabin) is an engine driver. Together with his stoker Pecqueux (Carette), a lugubrious man with a cigarette always on his lips and a girl in every depot, they speed though the countryside in a celebrated opening sequence that captures the power and awesomeness of the great steam locomotive (and is an early use of shaky cam).
They have time off at the station while the locomotive is repaired. Lantier visits his family where we learn he gets murderous impulses he can hardly control. He nearly strangles the pretty young Flore (Brunoy), stopping only when a train rushes by on the nearby tracks. In fact, the trains are his lifesaver. He knows he is safe from his impulses when he is with "Lison", as he calls his locomotive.
Back at the station, the station-master Roubaud (Ledoux) tells off a man with a dog. - What's the problem with my dog? - The regulations don't allow dogs in the compartments. - I don't like your tone of voice. Do you know who I am? - I don't need to know. I make no distinctions among passengers.
Alas, it is a sugar baron who can make trouble for Roubaud. He asks his wife Severine (Simon) to pull strings with her wealthy godfather Grandmorin (Berlioz). They can combine this with a shopping trip to Paris.
In Paris they stay with Victoria, Severine's mother's friend, who is the lavatory attendant at the station and also Pecqueux's wife. It illustrates one of the strengths of the movie, which shows well the lives and esprit de corps of this group of working men who must move from place to place and stay in railway housing with their colleagues. They are a friendly bunch who know each other and stick up for each other.
The perils of having a wife who is too young and pretty for you! In Paris middle-aged Roubaud learns Grandmorin is Severine's lover. Enraged at being cuckolded, Roubaud gets Severine to invite Grandmorin on a train trip, where the couple murder the wealthy man. Lantier is on the train and sees them, but does not give them away. Severine starts an affair with Lantier to keep him quiet, and things go downhill from there.
The train photography, Jean Gabin's acting, and the glimpses of railway peoples' lives were the stand-outs for me, but in all departments this movie stands comparison with anything made 75 years later. It's my first Jean Renoir film I've seen. It won't be my last.