User Reviews

As an Englishman who loves French cinema I can usually find something to cherish in even the most banal - with the exception, of course, of the new wavelet merde - and here I rejoice in finding in the same movie two actors - both names beginning with B - who not only brought distinction to French cinema throughout their own lifetimes but in each case sired a son who carried on the family name. In the case of Bernard Blier, who only entered the industry the previous year, his son is Betrand Blier, a fine and well respected director. Pierre Brasseur made his first movie in 1924 and his son Claude continues to delight us in such titles as Daniele Thompson's Fauteuils d'orchestre. This time around Brasseur wrote the stage play which he himself - together with another great actor, Marcel Dalio - adapted for the screen. The movie was released in 1938 and two years later the Germans were in the driving seat and insisted that all Jewish connections with the film were erased from the credits including, of course, the name of Marcel Dalio, co-screeenwriter. What remains is, frankly, a melodrama with a somewhat original setting of a mining community, filmed in a real location. One of the finest French actresses of her generation, Madeleine Robinson (who sadly never figured on International radar) was cast against type as an unhappy and unfaithful wife, whilst a similar Internationally neglected actress, Odette Joyeux, makes a good job of the second female lead. Brasseur himself scores heavily as a man prepared to cuckold his best friend Raimond Amos but when the wife in question is Robinson who can really blame him. Not a great film any way you slice it but nevertheless a fascinating glimpse of what the domestic market was throwing up against international hits like Quai des Brumes (which featured Brasseur as a 'heavy') and Hotel du Nord (which featured Blier in a supporting role). I'm glad I got the chance to check it out, cheers, Didier.

Grisou was directed in 1938, the year of so many masterpieces of french cinema (best cinema in the world in the thirties?). It's a melo signed Marcel Dalio and Pierre Brasseur who is awful good in his own story, without doing too much and letting other actors play their character. And he is surrounded by his friend Aimos who is at his best. But my top favorite is Madeleine Robinson, she is so full of life and sensuality. And there is also Bernard Blier and Odette Joyeux. Another interesting detail is the true setting of a coal mining town, the director Maurice de Canonge loved true settings.