Gas-Oil (1955)
Directed by Gilles Grangier

Film Review

The success of Jacques Becker's Touchez pas au Grisbi (1954) was instrumental in establishing the policier as a major genre in mainstream French cinema in the mid-1950s. This film was also significant in helping to re-start Jean Gabin's career after a period of decline following his unsuccessful attempt to break into Hollywood in the early 1940s. Subsequently, Gabin would become closely associated with the policier genre - not the romantic hero of the actor's early years, but a tougher, more taciturn character, equally suited for the role of the redoubtable cop or hardened hoodlum. In Gilles Grangier's Gas-Oil, Gabin is neither a cop nor a crook, but a lone roughneck fighting his own battle against gangsters who make the fatal mistake of getting his dander up. It's a role that serves the older Gabin perfectly and helped to earn him his reputation as the hard man of French cinema in the 1950s.

Prior to this, Grangier had directed Gabin in another noirish drama, La Vierge du Rhin (1953), and several other collaborations in the policier genre would follow - notably Le Cave se rebiffe (1961) and Maigret voit rouge (1963). Gas-Oil is one of the more satisfying of the many films that Gabin made with Grangier, although its stylish production and solid performances are compromised by its somewhat pedestrian plot which has some difficulty tying together its disparate elements. Playing alongside Gabin is Jeanne Moreau, a future icon of the French New Wave who was already dazzling audiences at the start of her impressive screen career.

The presence of Ginette Leclerc as a gangster's widow is a bonus - once renowned for playing vamps and other assorted 'bad women', the actress never lost her seductive appeal in her declining years. Roger Hanin also makes his mark in one of his early tough guy supporting roles, not long before stardom came his way when he took over the role of Géo Paquet from Lino Ventura in La Valse du Gorille (1959). Somewhat lacking in originality, Gas-Oil falls short of the excellence of other French thrillers of this era, but an impressive turn from Gabin and some suitably grim noir touches make it one of Gilles Grangier's more memorable films.

Film Synopsis

After spending the night with his girlfriend Alice at her home in the suburbs of Paris, Jean Chape drives off in his five-ton lorry in the early hours and unwittingly runs over a body laid out in the road. Without delay, Jean reports the matter to the police who, suspecting foul play, promptly impound the lorry. The autopsy confirms that the victim, a notorious hoodlum named Scopo, was dead before Chape drove over him. Returning to his home in the Auvergne, the lorry driver is pursued by the gangster's widow and his accomplices, who are determined to recover a suitcase containing the spoils of Scopo's last hold-up - fifty million francs. Disbelieving Chape's protestations that he has no knowledge of the money, Scopo's criminal associates set about persecuting him in the hope that he will crack and return to them their ill-gotten gains. Chape has no intention of giving in to the crooks. With the help of his friends, he goes on the offensive and a fierce showdown soon appears inevitable...