Le Jour se Lève (1939)

Essential Viewing

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Le jour se lève

Director: Marcel Carné

Writers: Jacques Viot, Jacques Prévert

Cinematographers: Philippe Agostini, André Bac, Albert Viguier

Composer: Maurice Jaubert

Cast: Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty, Jules Berry

A never better Gabin plays a charming factory worker, who, the object of an armed siege, sits, chain-smoking away, remembering the lies and loves that led to him murdering a dog-training love rival, in Carné’s fatalistic magnum opus, a convincingly acted, poetically composed, and quite brilliant masterwork. Iain.Stott