Paris After Dark

Set amidst the Nazi occupation of Paris, this film follows the perilous lives of those trying to balance their routine "public" lives with organising the resistance. Leading their efforts is "Dr. Marbel" (George Sanders) who manages to stay on decent enough terms with the brutish "Col. Pirosh" (Robert Lewis) by helping treat his soldiers. Not everyone knows of his more patriotic role, though, and he frequently earns the enmity of his compatriots. "Blanchard" (Philip Dorn), meantime, has just returned from a period of incarceration and is pretty shell-shocked, his spirit broken and his nerves on edge. He tries to encourage a policy of co-operation - to stay alive. This causes ructions with the hot-headed "Georges" (Raymond Roe) whose tragic murder galvanises the locals just as the Allies land in Algiers. It's a bit wordy this, but Léonide Moguy does create a sense of the constant state of fear in which the population lived at the hands of their malevolent new masters. It's not a particularly notable effort from Sanders, but Dorn and firebrand Roe contrast well as people have to make almost impossible choices to keep themselves, and their families, from a potential firing squad. It's not really got an ending, more a work in progress and though perfectly watchable, isn't really very memorable.

Set in German-occupied Paris, the plot concerns the day-to-day struggles of the French resistance during WWII, made all the more believable by a cast chosen from among real-life refugees – in other words those who were eye-witnesses to the film's historical backdrop. I suspect that when "Paris After Dark" played in small-town America, the world it unveiled was still rather exotic. Even with full-on U.S involvement after Pearl Harbor, the idea of an underground resistance for most Americans was something shadowy and obscure. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther, though not at all impressed, did acknowledge "the terrible tragedy of the French people under Nazi occupation" which the film evoked. However, this is a film that holds its own alongside similar portrayals of the war in Europe, such as Robert Stevenson's "Joan of Paris" and William Wyler's "Mrs. Miniver", the latter in which the inimitable Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon bolstered the moral imperative of continued U.S. involvement.

Fans of "Casablanca" (1942) will recognize the lovely Madeleine LeBeau in a supporting role. According to Wikipedia, LeBeau, along with her husband, Marcel Dalio, escaped from Paris in June, 1940, just ahead of the Nazi advance, eventually finding their way to the U.S. Fans of George Sanders will love his role as a heroic leader of the underground movement. But the stars of the film are Brenda Marshall and Philip Dorn. Some viewers may recall Marshall as the scientist Nora Goodrich in Anthony Mann's "Strange Impersonation" (1946). The Dutch-born Dorn was better known as an actor in Germany but who also moved to the U.S. with the war's outbreak. Director Leonide Moguy sought refuge in the States in a similar manner. He also directed the interesting noir, "Whistle Stop" (1946), with George Raft and Ava Gardner before returning to France. In short, this was a cast and company that appeared to know first-hand what they were portraying during one of the war's bleakest periods.

As of this writing, it is available as a Fox Cinema Archives release, and well worth tracking down, if only for the history lesson it movingly portrays.

This is not a great war film, and today it is hopelessly outdated. The credits of the film is that the actors (almost all escaped from France during the occupation) act with absolute sincerity and conviction, giving the film a character of genuine honesty as an effort to communicate how life was in Paris for Parisians during the occupation. The documentary character is missing, however, being replaced by a rather uncouth sentimentality, as if it was contaminated by Hollywood, which it apparently was. It was made for the Americans to show them how hard life was in Europe for civilians under the German occupation, and the excellent acting by Philip Dorn, Brenda Marshall and George Sanders add to the credibility. So if you can forget the sentimental smear over it all, you will find it a most valuable and realistic account of life in the resistance. One warning: there are no human Germans here.

This movie has a lot of weaknesses, but its heart is in the right place, and there are definitely good moments for those who enjoy this sort of movie.

The only other reviewer of this movie here on IMDb mentioned "Mrs. Miniver," and the comparison is very valid. That very stirring if often melodramatic movie was made to convince Americans in the early 1940s, still given to isolationism, that the English were worth helping because they were good, decent, and courageous people.

"Paris After Dark" is very similar in that it was made to convince Americans that France, too, merited our help. The situation was very different, however, so the convincing had to be different.

France had declared an armistice shortly after being overrun by the Nazi war machine in 1940. Maréchal Pétain, head of the French armed forces, convinced the government to do so, and then collaborated with the Nazis for the rest of the war, for which he was tried after it. As a result, many Americans saw the French as cowardly and lacking in the sort of moral fiber that "Mrs. Miniver" spends all its time demonstrating to be the very essence of the English character.

So "Paris After Dark" spends a lot of time arguing that 1) the average Frenchman and -woman, Joe/Jane France, was really courageous, and had had nothing to do with signing the armistice, and 2) that all of France, all classes and both sexes, were already fighting the Nazis through the Resistance, even at the risk of their own lives - thereby showing their courage, moral fiber, etc.

This produces a lot of stirring speeches by various of the characters, which, admittedly, often come off as unnaturally oratorical. But you can see what the scriptwriters and the director were trying to achieve.

The acting is uneven. George Sanders and Philip Dorn are both very good. Both are men who have to be won over to the Resistance efforts, and their conversions are convincing. Brenda Marshall, the female lead, sometimes overacts, and is not at their level. Marcel Dalio, so good in so many movies, doesn't do a convincing job with the traitor barber.

If you've seen American movies made in the 1930s that are set in France, you know that Hollywood had often presented the French as rather foolish. Here it does an admirable job of presenting a wide spectrum of French folk, among them lots of average but very noble individuals.

Yes, it's preachy at times. But the cause justified that.

If Hollywood's contributions to the war effort interest you, you will find much of interest here.

-------------------

A note after a second viewing: This movie, released in 1943 before we had landed on the Normandy beaches, deals with France at what was a real turning point in the Occupation.

On the one hand, the collaborationist prime minister, Pierre Laval, had just negotiated an exchange of workers to be sent to Germany - the STO, Service du Travail obligatoire - in exchange for French prisoners to be released home to France. (The Germans were holding 1.9 million French soldiers prisoner as part of the Armistice Pétain signed in June, 1940.) The ratio was 3:1, three Frenchmen - or women - sent to Germany to work in exchange for one French soldier to be released. It created further hatred for Germany, as the occupying forces began enforcing the "obligation" for men to leave. Many faced with such deportation joined the French Résistance, as Georges and his three friends try to do in this movie.

On the other hand, American forces landed in French North Africa - Morocco and Algeria - at the end of 1942, and after a rather swift campaign, defeated the Germans and Italians there. (If you've ever seen "The Desert Fox", you know that story.) It was called Operation Torch, and, as we see near the end of this movie, it gave the French their first real shot of hope that the Allies had not abandoned them and would, someday, free France as well.

As I wrote above, a lot of this movie is oratorical. People give speeches, sometimes even to the camera. But the last part, where Jean is won over to the cause of the Resistance, is really very moving.

Yes, the film is a bit over the top. Yes, it is corny and sentimental in several instances. And yes, it does contain several stereotypes and cartoonish portrayal of Germans. However, despite all of these failings, the film is very successful for one reason; authenticity. The film is authentic because it was made smack in the middle of the German Occupation of France. The emotions portrayed by the French in this film are as genuine as one can get from a film.

George Sanders plays a lower-case Schindler in the film, and does a very good job, despite having to play a good guy (he is so much more effective at playing cads, neer-do-wells, and unfeeling characters). Brenda Marshall does an outstanding job as the lead actress, and Philip Dorn is very effective in his role of a lifetime as a returned POW.

The film does skip over one or two important elements of Vichy France, however. It plays up the resistance very well, but it does not really show how many of the French (Vichy Government) collaborated with the Germans. The single exception is an Italian barber, but Luigi is obviously not French (it is a sly slap at the Italians for being allied with the Germans). Luigi, to be sure, is a lowlife, but there were several thousand French lowlifes as well that supported the Vichy government. There are several good dramatic moments in the film, and one instance of selecting the lessor or two evils over the impulse to let a Nazi officer die. Compared to the dozens of other "French Resistance" films made since then, this one is easily in the top ten.