Hotel Du Nord (1938)

In a working class district in Paris, two stories unfold: 1) two despondent young lovers (Annabella, Jean Pierrre Aumont) engage in a suicide pact. He will shoot her and then turn the gun on himself. But after shooting her, he runs away. 2) a prostitute (Arletty) is treated badly by her pimp (Louis Jouvet) who has a hidden past that will come back to confront him. Based on the novel by Eugene Dabit and directed by Marcel Carne (LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS). The film is part of the "poetic realism" that proliferated in 1930s French cinema. Slipping in between Carne's two masterpieces, PORT OF SHADOWS and LE JOUR SE LEVE, this movie tends to get overlooked in Carne's filmography. While nowhere near the greatness of those two films, HOTEL DU NORD is still a worthy entry that deserves a little more attention. It has its flaws (the situation of the girl still in love with the man who shot her is kind of icky) but overall it's a captivating mood piece. I was going to say atmospheric but I decided against it (you have to have seen the movie to understand why). As the lovers, Annabella is charming (this was her last French film before leaving for Hollywood where she would marry Tyrone Power) and Jean Pierre Aumont is touching but the film belongs to Arletty and Louis Jouvet as the sparring prostitute and pimp. Jouvet especially brings a poignance to the lost man finally reclaiming his humanity but too late. With Jane Marken, Andre Brunot, Bernard Blier, Francois Perier and Paulette Dubost.