Justin de Marseille

After Paris Marseilles is arguably the most popular setting for French movies. Robert Guideguian is steeped in the tradition of Marcel Pagnol but in between everyone and his Uncle Max seems to have had a go with varying results - Borsalino and the Taxi series were undoubted hits but there have been others, like this one, that are never going to make it outside France. Maurice Tourneur's track record stretches back to the days of the Silents whilst his son, Jacques, has given us such fare as 'Cat People', 'The Flame And The Arrow', 'Out Of The Past (Build My Gallows High') etc. Justin de Marseilles delivers some very 'moody' photography, 'cluttered' docksides - easy to see where Josef Von Sternberg got his ideas - and a Pagnolian sense of community. 70 years on the story make creak a tad but (Antonin) Berval as Justin and Ghislaine Bru as Totone are solid leads. For the record this was the movie that introduced Tino Rossi to an indifferent world but nobody's perfect. 7/10