A Man Walks in the City

It's Le Havre right after the war, with the city still in ruins. The only life is in the port, where poor men compete for the few jobs offloading ships. Robert Dalban can't get work, because the shift manager doesn't like his face. He takes it out on his wife, Ginette Leclerc, and their inert son. She decides she and Jean-Pierre Kérien are in love. When Dalban is found dead, thrown from a height onto the docks, suspicion falls on Kérien.

It's a mess of a story about the messes in the city, and it doesn't look like anything will ever be solved, even though the audience sees everything and knows all the answers. Everyone is half mad. The movie is pitched halfway between film noir in its night time scenes, and Neo-realism, with its sordid and unhappy focus on the desperately poor. It looks like they wanted Gabin for the lead, but he wasn't interested. The result is a messy and unsatisfactory movie.

The story takes place in Le Havre just after the war. Bombed out buildings are everywhere, there's a feeling of people trying to get started again after years of struggle. Laurent is a heavy drinker on the docks who mistreats his wife Madeleine and ends up being killed in a brawl. His friend Jean feels guilty about starting an affair with Madeleine.

There is a lot of atmosphere in this film--it looks very much like what de Sica and Rossellini were doing in Italy during this period. The photography is superb, lots of dark tones and shadows during the day, rich blacks for the outdoor scenes at night. All the actors are good, especially Ginette Leclerc as the frustrated wife, her tormented face often seen in close-up, and Jean Pierre Kérien as Jean.