Hans le marin (1949)
Directed by François Villiers

Film Review

Now an international star, thanks to her appearances in such films as Arabian Nights (1942) and Cobra Woman (1944), Maria Montez began her conquest of Europe with this torrid film noir.  The first of two films that Montez made in France - the other being Bernard-Roland's Portrait d'un assassin (1949) - Hans le marin (a.k.a. Wicked City) looks like a throwback to the poetic realist films of the late 1930s, with Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko (1937) and Marcel Carné's Le Quai des brumes (1938) being two obvious influences on both the plot and the film's brooding aesthetic.  Here Montez stars alongside her husband, Jean-Pierre Aumont, the first film he made in his native France after his decade long exile in America.  Immedaitely prior to this, the couple had worked together on John Brahm 's Siren of Atlantis (1949).

Adapted from a novel by Edouard Peisson, Hans le marin was directed by Aumont's brother, François Villiers.  Although he only made around a dozen films, Villiers was critically acclaimed for his work, winning a Golden Globe for L'Eau vive (1958) and the Grand prix du cinéma français (the forerunner of the Best Film César) for Jusqu'au bout du monde (1962).  Whilst Hans le marin is far from being his best regarded work, it reveals in Villiers a director of considerably skill and artistry.  The location sequences are particularly effective, making good use of the Marseille setting to emphasise the hopelessly tragic nature of the protagonist's romantic infatuation, in classic film noir fashion. The winding streets of the Old Port, steeply ascending and descending as in an Escher print, create a stifling sense of entrapment, and we realise early on in the film that Aumont's character has no possibility of escape.  Once he has fallen under the spell of Montez's darkly seductive femme fatale he is a doomed man, and who can blame him?

Jean-Pierre Aumont is surprisingly effective in the role which, in French films of the late 1930s, would have gone by default to Jean Gabin.  Aumont may not have Gabin's presence or tragic allure, but there is an intensity and odd mix of romanticism and menace to his portrayal which is rarely noticeable in his other films.  In his dual quest to recover both his identity and the woman who has become his enchantress, Aumont vaguely resembles James Stewart in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), and it is only the unambitious, disappointingly formulaic script that prevents this from being his best film.  Montez slips so easily into the part of the femme fatale that you can hardly imagine her in any other role, and despite her limited range she is absolutely spellbinding, particularly in her electrically charged scenes with Aumont.  Marcel Dalio and Lilli Palmer are welcome additions to an impressive supporting cast, although both are let down by some lazy screenwriting which prevents their characters from being much more than noir stereotypes.  Hans le marin was a last gasp for French poetic realism and it did little to revitalise Jean-Pierre Aumont's flagging popularity in France after the war, but, a stylish blend of French and American film noir, it was an admirable beginning for director François Villiers.

Film Synopsis

Once the US navy ship Alabama has docked at the port of Marseille, three of its crew, including a Canadian Eric Martin, head straight for the Kit-Cat bar.  Here, Eric falls under the spell of the prostitute Dolorès and spends the night with her.  When he leaves the next morning, Eric is attacked with a knife by two thugs, Victor and Aimé, who make off with his money and identity papers.  As Eric recovers from his injuries in hospital, his boat leaves Marseille.  Once out of hospital, Eric goes looking for Dolorès but he is told that she left the city a few days ago with a rich lover.  Alone and penniless, Eric finds work as a bouncer at the Kit-Cat bar.  He meets a gypsy, Tania, who works at the bar as a fortune teller.  Taking pity on Eric, Tania agrees to help him by providing him with the identity papers of a Dutch sailor named Hans Norgen...