Razzia sur la chnouf

I just saw this tonight on TFO (Télévision française en Ontario) in a pristine black and white print and a very hopped-up fake stereo soundtrack that gives extra presence to the jazz music, the nightclub atmosphere, the dialog and the sound effects. Everything about this little police story is modern: the camera movements, the naturalism of the interpretation, the Paris slang, the art of the narration, the atmosphere of the criminal milieu, the non-judgemental attitudes. You really feel like you are there. The actors are all superb: Lila Kedrova, Jean Gabin, Dalio, Magali Noël... It's films like these that make you realize that the so-called Nouvelle Vague was really a step backward and a failure on every level (especially the intellectual) besides being a monumental bore. The real dream-weavers and the real avant-garde were the so-called traditionalists like Decoin.

Decoin started as a sports reporter, and there is much more of trying to describe the milieu of drug users than moving the story forward. Gabin does a good job playing the international criminal brought in to revamp a drug ring by the sleek, sinister Dalio. Albert Remy and Lino Ventura as the killers are appropriately thuggish. Magali Noel, with her adorable sloe-eyed look and sensual mouth, is Gabin's girl-friend. Fellini must have loved her, he used her in three pictures.

At about the 60 minute mark, the film goes badly off the rails with the arrival of Lila Kedrova's junkie character; we're shunted off to one louche bar after another (gay and lesbian thrills abound) in the search for drugs. You are left waiting impatiently for the final shoot-out that you are sure will happen.

An output as prolific as that of Henri Decoin is bound to be variable but whatever his material he was never less than capable and at times excelled, notably in his commendable Film Noirs of the Forties.

Unsurprisingly French Cinema has produced superlative adaptations of the literary collection Série Noire and here, in what is arguably his last great film, Decoin's choice of a low-key, slow-paced, distanced, near documentary approach has resulted in an absolutely absorbing version of Auguste le Breton's novel.

Decoin had previously worked with Jean Gabin on the excellent 'La Vérité sur Bébé Donge' in which Gabin's role was not exactly a jackpot of admirable character traits but in this he is as tough-as-nails and called upon to be just as ruthless as the criminals he is pursuing. Of course once he had made the iconic 'Touchez pas au Grisbi' for Jacques Becker, his grittier image was firmly established but even his greatest fans I'm sure would have been taken aback by his steely, hard-bitten performance in this. A little bit of the old charm comes through in his relationship with the luscious Magali Noel who is young enough to be his daughter and as a fifty-one year old he has wisely elected to keep his pyjamas on.

Decoin was a great admirer of 'Grisbi' and has used that film's cinematographer Pierre Montazel as well as reuniting Gabin with Lino Ventura, Paul Frankeur and Michel Jourdan. As Hemingway proved, killers that come in pairs are most effective and here the deadly duo of Ventura and Albert Rémy are chilling. Also of note are Marcel Dalio as a well groomed low-life, having played opposite Gabin in Renoir's masterpiece 'La Grande Illusion' twenty years earlier and the extraordinary Lila Kedrova as one of cinema's most wretched creatures.

This gripping, groundbreaking piece is a precursor to the nastier neo/polar noirs that were to come but with the passage of time its depiction of certain characters is now deemed politically incorrect.

The film offers a grim reminder that although the war against 'the scourge of drugs' might at one time have seemed winnable, it has long since become a lost cause.

Contrary to another review here, there is nothing "routine" about this movie. And it certainly isn't a "documentary" (where did that come from?) A superbly realized work of Henri Decoin this is a trip though the Parisian underworld, circa 1955. Junkies, hit-men, prostitutes, pimps, and other denizens of the urban underworld populate this corker of a film. In typical Decoin fashion, the intrigue and double-crosses get complicated: you have to pay close attention and remember names. But it's worth it--this movie really pays off. A rarely-mentioned hard-boiled classic of French noir. Lino Ventura, Albert Rémy, Lila Kedrova (in a hell of a performance), an early appearance by Magali Noël, and plenty of others, headed up by Jean Gabin. The great star of French cinema was visibly aging--and of course he had to be paired with the 20-something Noël--but he does a great job as always. Absolutely essential viewing if you like Noir in its French rendition. French title: RAZZIA SUR LA CHNOUF (DOPE RAID).

Henry Decoin made an interesting movie dealing with what was a taboo subject back in 1955.His depiction of the crepuscular world of drugs displays no leniency,and the screenplay often drops the main story and uses documentary vignettes:the little dealers who use the candies machines in the subway for instance .A sober Jean Gabin does not outshadow the rest of the cast:particularly Marcel Dalio,as a big shot ,and Lila Kedrova ,as a junkie ,begging for a few more in the impressive last sequence which gathers near all the cast!