The latest in the 50-film boxset, this one is quintessentially French, which is to say, don't get too attached to the protagonist, who is very charming but also very much a male chauvinist pig. Of course, it's the great Jean Gabin in his breakout role, and if it was anyone less likeable you would cheer Pepé's inevitable demise given how shoddily he treats his devoted Gypsy lover Inès (hint - that's not her in the poster).
Essentially, Pepé is a notorious thief and bankrobber (although we have to accept this on reputation, as stated by all the cops we see plotting his arrest - we never actually see him and his gang in action - the closest is them having their regular fence ("Grandpa") assess some jewels' worth before they are interrupted by a police raid) who is holed up in the Casbah region of Algiers. This is really the true star of the film, as it is a convincingly (I imagine it was all sets) portrayed maze of alleys, courtyards and rooftops containing a polyglot multi-ethnic throng into which Pepé can vanish to escape capture, and they will close ranks around him owing to his legendary reputation. However, he's been holed up there for two years at least, and he's itching to escape (he's missing Paris - you would think the Paris tourist board sponsored this film the amount of waxing lyrical about its many delights that goes on (at one point Pepé flatters his love interest by saying she smells of the Metro(!))
Anyway, the plot (well, it's more a series of events) is roughly as follows. Different forces are intent on bringing down Pep: the stodgy white Frenchies just want to do raids into the Casbah, but these turn up empty. Then two factions of locals try their hand: the slimy-but-undoubtedly-cunning informer Règis, and the cynical but upfront local police inspector Slimane. Pepé sees through Règis, but tragically his young gang-member (whom he regards as like a little brother) Pierrot, who originally came to the Casbah because he was a deserter, does not, and is tricked into leaving the Casbah when he gets a letter that purports to be from his mother, who is ill and waiting for him in Algiers. This is overseen by Pierrot's girlfriend who gets panicky when Pierrot doesn't return and tells Pepé, who immediately suspects Règis and has him confined to a room with the rest of the gang while they wait for Pierrot to return. Règis realizes he's pretty much done for,
and understandably finds it hard to concentrate on the card games they have him playing. Somehow Pierrot has escaped capture but is mortally wounded, so his buddies hold him up so he can execute Règis (and have to take over when he dies just before he can do it).
This is probably the best part of the movie - it's genuinely gripping, intense, and very film-noiresque. Slimane, on the other hand, Pepé respects.
He makes no secret of the fact that he intends to arrest Pepé, and Pepé likes him for it. However, it is Slimane who brings about Pepé's downfall by first (accidentally) introducing him to Gaby, the much-bejewelled trophy-wife of a fat visiting Parisian, and then strategically managing their relationship. It is Gaby into whose eyes Jean Gabin is gazing in the poster, and she who "smells of the Metro."
It also emerges that she grew up just streets from him and has clearly dragged her way up the social ladder by cunning much as he has. You have to believe that they are soulmates for the inexorable tragic arc of the movie to make sense, and I'm not sure you do. Certainly poor old Inès is mystified how her lover of two years can have fallen so quickly and completely for this upstart, and is motivated eventually to betray him. But Slimane's victory is somewhat Pyrrhic, and his respect for his longtime foe undercuts the victory he has cleverly won.
On the whole, I'd say this is a slight movie, but the characters (particularly Slimane) are well-drawn and complex (echoes of Claude Raine's character in Casablanca) and if you wanted to trace the history of noir, this definitely counts as a proto-noir. And I'll watch just about anything with Gabin in it.
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