They Were Five

La belle equipe or They Were Five is often praised as the highest achievement of Julien Duvivier. It's French poetic realism at its finest - a style whose most remembered representatives are: L'Atalante (1934) by Jean Vigo and Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937). When Charles Spaak had just finished the screenplay of La belle equipe the master Jean Renoir got actually very interested in it and wanted to film it, but Julien Duvivier had already bought the rights for it. One can't help but wonder how different the film might have been if Renoir would've filmed it. At least it would've gained much more reputation, but no one can no whether it would have been better, because Duvivier was a very talented filmmaker as well. La belle equipe represents the French optimism (1935-36), it's also a true national film and an interesting contemporary description of the working class.

A group of five penniless workers wander around the streets of Paris. They live in a lousy block of flats, whose landlord put the light out immediately by 9 pm. One night when they are playing cards in the darkness, a pleasant message arrives: they've just won 100, 000 Francs with the lottery. After a quick enthusiasm they realize that the amount won't last through their whole life: so they decide to buy and reconstruct a small resort out of town. Eventually wealth and fortune start to rip the group apart and unpredictable events begin to occur.

Julien Duvivier first shows the miserable life of the workers: he shows them hanging in the streets, leaning on dirty walls and hiding from cops. The happy twist seems quite surreal, but the series of events it occurs is far more interesting. As I mentioned above the film represents the optimism in France during that time: is it possible for the working class to go and work on their own outside of the society? It's quite hard to know what Duvivier thought himself because he filmed two different endings: a pessimist ending for the bourgeoisie and an optimist one for the working class, which is far more well known and often the ending distributed in Europe.

No matter what Duvivier himself thought, - is it possible in this society for the working class to stand up and do what they've dreamed of, La belle equipe is a poetic description of its time. It beautifully exhales the optimism of the short era in France before the WWII, which Jean Renoir tried to prevent with his poetic masterpiece La Grande Illusion. La belle equipe is a true national film.

When a movie has practically no plot, as is the case for "La Belle Equipe", you at least hope/expect that character development will be its strong suit. But most of the characters here are hollow, with only Jean Gabin standing out (he commands the screen more than any other cast member, with only Viviane Romance giving him any competition). There are hardly any visual innovations as well - like there were in an earlier Julien Duvivier film ("Moon Over Morocco") which also revolved around 5 male friends. In one word, skippable. ** out of 4.

I am adding to this commentary in June 2016 to point out to any fans of this film that, almost unbelievably after waiting such a long time, it is now actually available in France (since June 1st) on Blu-ray and DVD. This is an issue by Pathé, together with certain others of Duvivier's films and notably the (in)famous "Voici Le Temps Des Assassins". The set comprises a Blu-ray (Zones A B C) plus a DVD (Zone 2 - Europe Only), the film has been remastered and is with French Language Audio AND a choice of French or English Subtitles). This should bring a lot of pleasure to a lot of people who have been awaiting this reissue for many years : shot in 1936 on the Banks of The Marne river some 5 miles from Paris, La Belle Equipe constituted a milestone in French Cinema. Coinciding with the advent of the " Front Populaire ", the film is today remembered for the scenes in the guinguette and the beautiful valse musette " Quand on s'promène au bord de l'eau " sung by actor Jean Gabin and accompanied by roving accordionist Albert Deprince. The film is about a group of factory workers who win the lottery and club together to construct a guingette ( dance hall ) on the banks of the Marne between Nogent and Joinville. All starts well but quarrels develop and women get in the way ! There are in fact two endings, a happy one reluctantly made by director Duvivier to please the public,and a pessimistic one which was the director's own personal choice. For some strange reason the pessimistic ending is always subtitled in German !!! The new issue of the film includes both the pessimistic and the optimistic endings.You may visit today by riverboat the area where the film was shot and until a few years ago could see the actual remains of the "guinguette" built specially for the film !!

Made at the time when the Popular Front was about to happen,"la belle équipe" perfectly captured the thirties zeitgeist.This was a very optimistic time,and no one could have forecast what would occur in the years to come:1936 Summer saw the first paid vacations .

Jean Gabin was THE French actor of this era,the one who embodied almost everything the audience was dreaming of.Here he plays an employed man,who,with five mates ,wins on the raffle :they decide to buy a guinguette (a café on the banks of the Seine river where you can drink wine and dance).The guinguettes have now completely disappeared in France but it must have been many a Parisian's dream at least till early sixties:just hear the song Gabin sings (he's not dubbed,he used to cut records all along his acting career)telling about fun "quand on s'promène au bord de l'eau" (when go for a stroll along the riverside).There's an almost identical sung sequence in "sous le ciel de Paris"(1952).The guinguettes are part of the past French cinema:Jean Renoir's "une partie de campagne" described them as if he were a painter;ditto the beginning of Jacques Becker's masterpiece "Casque d'or"(1952)which magnificently captured their atmosphere.In "voici le temps des assassins" (1956),his film noir extraordinaire,Duvivier showed a darker side of the guinguettes .

This dark side is already present in "la belle équipe" .Leftish French critics said that the optimistic ending (the team succeeds)was released in the popular theaters ,and the doomed one(the team fails) was shown in chic ones .Modern historians generally do not agree.Duvivier's choice was certainly the pessimist conclusion:it could not be any other way when you know his work,one of the most somber of the French cinema. It must have been filmed first,then the producers asked him to sweeten the screenplay:they were not completely wrong,on account of the historical background.Nowadays,French TV show the two endings in a row.

"La belle équipe" is brimming with camaraderie,joie de vivre and vie en rose.With its happy end ,it's a true oasis,a truce before the flood.Subsequent works such as "carnet de bal" and "la fin du jour" will blight all hopes.

"The camaraderie we five shared was, I don't know...it was like the smell of bread." "I'm your cake. It's better!"

They Were Five, or in the French title, The Beautiful Team, has a group of five down-on-their luck friends win a share of the lottery, enabling them to open up a guinguette, which is a riverside open-air restaurant. The five have an easy camaraderie with one another, though they were also a little annoying early on, expecting their landlord to put up with not paying their rent and demanding improvements. The film is directed by Julien Duvivier and stars Jean Gabin so it's certainly a quality production, but to be honest it was Viviane Romance playing Gina who was the best part for me.

Gina is separated from her husband (Charles Vanel), but upon hearing of his windfall, turns up to get 2,000 francs out of him. "I'll pay you for it," she tells him with a smile, meaning she'll toss some sex into the deal. When Gabin goes to get the money back at her apartment, one adorned with an array of nude photos of herself on the wall, she opens her robe and, smiling flirtatiously, says "Can't you see I'm in my undies?" and more suggestively, "Anything else you'd like? Go ahead. Help yourself." He of course does. Viviane Romance is fantastic here, even if the character is pretty flimsy (if not offensive).

This sets in motion a chain of events that spells doom for the guinguette, and it's echoed in other ways that a woman creates trouble for the pals. The first guy leaves after being admonished by Gabin's character for somewhat openly being attracted to one of the other's girlfriend (Micheline Cheirel), in a little bit of foreshadowing and a load of hypocrisy. The man with the girlfriend is hiding from the police, but is given away when she calls out to him, resulting in him being served with a deportation order (though they leave together, blessed by her grandma, so it's not a negative characterization). A third friend dies after falling off the roof, an accident mercifully not caused by a woman, and suddenly They Were Five has become They Were Two. They've gone from a partnership where one proudly proclaims "This is a republic where all citizens are presidents" to being rivals for a "loose" woman, and it seems this fall from grace is laid mostly at the doorstep of the woman. This feeling was cemented when Gabin's character calls her a bitch and hits her in the face, which (ugh, of course) turns her on. "I didn't think you were a man," she gushes with a smile, looking up into his eyes from an inch away.

The lack of nuance in this character aside, the storytelling is solid and the black and white cinematography is beautiful, especially in scenes with the trees by the river. There are also little bits like Gabin singing in a reverie, and the friends cheating to essentially steal items out of an olde time claw machine (the quality of which were considerably higher than the ones in arcades today!). There is also a rather intense ending (I saw the original, pessimistic version), one that's filmed well and has some fine acting from Gabin and Vanel, even if it was a little abrupt.