Gueule d'amour (1937)
Directed by Jean Grémillon

Film Review

Jean Grémillon had been making documentaries and films for fifteen years before he had his first success with this inspired adaptation of André Beucler's popular novella Gueue d'amour, which was first published in 1926. Grémillon had made a number of interesting films prior to this - notably his silent masterpiece Maldone (1928) - but the critics and cinema-going public were slow to appreciate his talents.  Even though he made several important films in the 1940s - including major box office hits Remorques (1941) and Le Ciel est à vous (1944) - Grémillon never achieved the lasting acclaim of his contemporaries (Renoir, Duvivier, Carné, etc.) and today he remains largely overlooked, one of the forgotten masters of French cinema.  Gueue d'amour is Grémillon's best-known film and his first commercial success, a haunting portrayal of obsessive love and betrayal that both typifies and transcends the doom-laden romantic melodramas made in France in the late 1930s.  In common with much of Grémillon's work, the film's populist subject matter (a good man ruined by the black-hearted woman he falls in love with) is subtly subverted to provide a wry commentary on the social and political ills of the time. 

Gueue d'amour was Grémillon's third and most successful collaboration with screenwriter Charles Spaak, after the ill-received La Petite Lise (1930) and Daïnah la métisse (1931).  Although the film broadly fits with the poetic realist trend of the period, it stands apart from the poetic realism of Grémillon's contemporaries, lacking the expressionistic stylisation and brooding aura of comparable works by Julien Duvivier and Marcel Carné.   Grémillon's approach is somewhat more naturalistic, less reliant on the conventional melodramatic devices; the characters and their settings have a more realist edge to them, and there are even a few welcome humorous digressions, which provide a tantalising suggestion of social satire.

This is the film that earned its lead actor Jean Gabin his enduring nickname Gueue d'amour and gave him one of his most memorable screen roles.  By this stage in his career, Gabin was one of the leading lights of French cinema, as often as not cast as the ill-fated romantic hero from a working class milieu.  Gabin's charismatic screen persona - a solid masculine presence tempered by a near-feminine gentleness - would dominate French cinema in the latter half of the 1930s, and it is probably no coincidence that virtually all of his films from this period are now world-renowned masterpieces. The dreamy eyed military man Lucien Bourrache was the kind of role that suited Gabin perfectly, an ill-fated romantic who, despite his excessive bursts of passion, retains our sympathy from start to finish.  The same cannot be said of the deliciously vile femme fatale Madeleine, superbly portrayed by Mireille Balin, who immediately strikes us as the worst that womankind has to offer. 

Gabin and Balin had previously appeared together in Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko (1937) but it is Gueule d'amour that makes far better used of their contrasting personas.  Whilst Lucien's beauty comes from within, from a character that is, whilst flawed, inherently good, Madeleine's beauty is only skin deep, the sensual lure of the Siren that will drag a man willingly to his doom.  Madeleine may at first repulse us but she ultimately emerges as a far more tragic character than Lucien.  She appears to be aware of her lack of human feeling yet she is powerless to act otherwise than she does, as the pleasure-seeking adventurer who lives only for the moment.  Is a testament to Balin's immense skill as an actress that whilst Madeleine is a thoroughly unattractive individual she manages to win our sympathy and is a far more complex character than we might have supposed.  We may not be taken in by her superficial charms, we may be shocked by her lack of sensitivity and egoism, but somehow she feels more real, more human, than Gabin's somewhat idealised Lucien.

The Madeleine archetype was quite prevalent in western cinema in the 1930s - as much so in Hollywood as in France.  At a time when women who led independent lives were considered immoral, the screen Madeleines satisfied the escapist fantasies of both the sexes.  Men naturally succumbed to the easy allure of the smouldering temptress, whilst women (good women, that is) could indulge in a fantasy which they could never live in real life. Stars such as Bette Davis pretty well built their careers on this cathartic need for vicarious naughtiness which the sordid femme fatale supplied by the cartload.  In France of the late 1930s, the screen Madeleines may have had a greater significance, symbolising the corrupting influences in society at the time, such as the Fascists and the capitalists.  This can be seen in the film's unusual but highly symbolic ending, in which Lucien is saved from the guillotine by his best friend René.  Their emotional farewell at the railway station, on a train that will give Lucien the possibility of a new life, is played as a love scene.  René's parting kiss to Lucien has great significance - not only does it assert that friendship is far greater than love, but it also suggests, to an audience of the time, that the spirit of the Popular Front is still alive and well.  By coming together and working for the common good to defeat the forces of darkness (represented by the wicked Madeleine), the French people can look forward to happier times.  The same message of defiance is expressed more forcefully in Grémillon's subsequent Le Ciel est à vous, which not only made a direct attack on the policies of the Vichy government but also served as a rallying cry for the French Resistance.

Film Synopsis

France, 1936.  Military man Lucien Bourrache is not only a credit to the Spahi regiment but also the idol of every woman he meets.  Nicknamed Gueule d'amour, he is worshiped by all the womenfolk of the town of Orange where he is currently stationed, not that he lets this interfere with his duties.  During a brief stay in Cannes, where he goes to collect a modest inheritance, Lucien meets and falls instantly in love with a beautiful society woman, Madeleine.  He allows her to gamble away his inheritance, persuaded that her feelings for him mirror his own for her.  Lucien soon realises his mistake and returns to his regiment.  A year later, Lucien has become obsessed with Madeleine.  He has left the army and found a low-paid job in a printers' works, so that he can be near to the woman he loves.  Finally, Lucien manages to find Madeleine and he forgives her in an instant when she professes her love for him.  They embark on a whirlwind romance, but Lucien soon begins to suspect that Madeleine's feelings for him may not be as intense as he imagined.  When he discovers that she is a kept woman and refuses to leave the man who is bankrolling her comfortable lifestyle, Lucien turns his back on her and returns to Orange.  Just when he appears to have put the love affair behind him he learns that his best friend René has met a woman named Madeleine and intends to marry her...