Jean Gabin and Salvador Dali

For the entire time I was writing my new two-volume book WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, I was trying to find a photograph of Jean Gabin and Salvador Dali together.

After all, Dali directed the incredible "drunk sequence" which happens about 15 minutes into Gabin's amazing 1942 noir, Moontide.
Of course, a picture like that never showed up... until today!

Here are Jean Gabin and Salvador Dali together, in Paris, in 1972, thirty years after the making of Moontide.

The World's Coolest Movie Star and The World's Coolest Surrealist -- together in one room. Submitted for your approval.

www.jeangabinbook.com

(PS, years ago, I saw a great still of Jean Gabin and John Garfield laughing it up as they wash dishes together in the kitchen of the Hollywood Canteen, circa 1942. If anybody happens to have it, let me know at author@jeangabinbook.com, and I will post it on this blog-site. Relatedly, if you happen to have any personal Jean Gabin anecdotes -- maybe you met him or your grandmother saw him crossing a street somewhere -- please tell me about it, and I'll post it on this site, as well...)

Meet Little "Grisbi" -- The First Dog Named After a Jean Gabin Movie!

Hey, everybody:

Who's this scrappy little fella?

Meet Grisbi -- he's a five-month-old pug!

An audience member who attended this past weekend's Jean Gabin Film Festival at the American Cinematheque, here in Los Angeles, was so impressed by the actor's great 1954 gangster movie Touchez pas au grisbi, that she went home and immediately named her newly-acquired five-month-old pug "Grisbi!" (The word 'grisbi' is French slang, meaning 'loot,' and the film's title, Touchez pas au grisbi, translates, in English, as Hands Off the Loot.)

Now, "Grisbi" is not only a great movie... it's a great dog!


www.jeangabinbook.com

Successful Jean Gabin Festival at the American Cinematheque!

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Thank you for everybody who attended this past weekend's two-night Jean Gabin Film Festival at the American Cinematheque! It was great!

The crowd (almost sold-out the first night; almost three-quarters-full the second night) loved all four of the movies -- SICILIAN CLAN, MOONTIDE, LE PORT DU DESIR (HOUSE BY THE WATERFRONT), and TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI, and a lot of people came up to me at the end of both evenings and asked me when the next Gabin Festival would be -- anyway, I hope to announce another one in the very near future.

I met a lot of people who told me some great Gabin Anecdotes that I didn't know about, and one lady (she looked to be about 90), who was bundled up in a fur coat and giant sunglasses, told me that she "met Gabin at Fox, in '42." One man told me that Gabin's 1970 action flick "La Horse" was released in the US (I didn't know it was) as "The Farm," but I haven't been able to check up on that tidbit yet... In fact, when Susan King interviewed me a couple of days before the festival for the Los Angeles Times, she told me that when she was a little girl, her parents took her to see a Doris Day movie called "The Glass Bottom Boat," and the co-feature it was released with -- back in the old days of 'double features' -- was "Melodie en sous-sol" ("Any Number Can Win"), and that she remembers entering the theater during the finale of that great Gabin/Delon picture.

All that, plus Helen Mirren was in the audience for Evening #2 (everybody saw her except for me, since 'this author' is completely oblivious to everything on earth), and I sold a lot of copies of WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN.

Anyway -- that's all for now! Thanks to everybody who made WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR WEEKEND at the American Cinematheque a great success.

PS: I just read today that John Woo is developing a re-make of THE SICILIAN CLAN for 20th Century Fox -- the studio which made the original film.

www.jeangabinbook.com

Another Gabin Gem Makes Its Way to U.S. DVD!

Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan on the set of director Jean Gremillon's "Remorques" (1939/1941).

Last month I announced the arrival of two Gabin movies on DVD -- Gabin's 1942 film "Moontide," out via Fox Video, and director Max Ophuls' anthology/tryptych from 1952, "Le Plaisir," on Criterion.

Well, a third hard-to-find Gabin classic has just been released quietly via a smaller label: It's director Jean Gremillion's outstanding Remorques, the literal title of which is "Tugboats" and the US title of which is Stormy Waters. Directed by the vastly underrated Poetic Realist Jean Gremillon, Remorques was filmed in 1939, and released in France in 1941. (The reason for the delayed release is that, about 90% into the film's production, Gabin was conscripted into the French Navy and had to take a year off from completing his scenes.)

The harrowing, fantastic, and relatively unknown (in America) Remorques is the last of the dark/heart-rending Poetic Realist films pictures in which Gabin starred in the late '30s, the moody 'tragic drifter' period during which he also made Quai des brumes, La Bete humaine, and Le Jour se leve, which are similar to Remorques in tone -- and this one is equally as good. It re-teams Gabin with Michele Morgan for the third time, after 1938's Le Recif corail and 1939's Le Quai des brumes, and the ending is so haunting, it's one of those rare films where, when it's over, you won't be able to get up for a few minutes. It's that great.

In Remorques, Gabin plays a disillusioned (when is he not?) tugboat captain, who's thrown over his physically ill wife in favor of a fetching stranger, played by Michele Morgan (who wouldn't do that)?

The title was originally released on VHS in the '80s by the now defunct Video Yesteryear, and a new retailer has purchased the rights to the entire Video Yesteryear catalog, and is selling the Video Yesteryear films, including Remorques, mostly through eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/STORMY-WATERS-Remorques-DVD_W0QQitemZ130157854085QQihZ003QQcategoryZ617QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247

The Video Yesteryear copy of Remorques is dubbed into English, it's shorter than the uncut French version (which is, in fact, better) and it hasn't been restored like many of Gabin's other films have -- but until the day that Remorques gets the Criterion treatment, if you're a Gabin completist, you'll definitely want to make this version of the picture a part of your collection.

Jean Gabin's Favorite Foods!

It's 5:30pm and, per Gabby Hayes in some western I saw once, I'm a mite peckish... and so, being the author of a (giant/two-volume) book about Jean Gabin, I started to wonder: What were Jean Gabin's favorite foods?

I asked Corinne Marchal, webmaster of the Gabin Musee (Gabin Museum) in Meriel, France. Ms. Marchal visited Los Angeles in July, and she told me that Jean Gabin's favorite foods were:

-- beans prepared with mutton (apparently, this was his favorite dish);
-- pot-au-feu, which, for lowbrow people like me who aren't chefs, is a French boiled beef-and-vegetable plate, similar to America's favorite hearty gustable "stew," although unlike stew, the beef and vegetables (carrots, celery, turnips, leeks)are usually placed separately on the plate. When Gabin lived with Marlene Dietrich, in France and in the U.S., they apparently used to have a lot of fun preparing pot-au-feu together;
-- fish (he liked it a lot);
-- roquefort cheese, spread with butter and served with Worcester sauce (!);
-- gruyère cheese dipped in mustard (!!);
-- also, Jean Gabin liked to add red wine into his soup, which people of his generation sometimes did. In French, the act of adding wine into one's soup, to increase the flavor, is called "do chabrot."

But 'man' (aka, Gabin) doesn't live on bread (and mutton, and roquefort cheese, and wine-soup) alone. One has to be able to wash it all down with something, and the World's Coolest Movie Star was a big-time connoisseur of whiskey, annisette (a sweet liqueur), and a very dry/acidic white wine called 'gros plant;' not only did he love to consume this wine, which comes from Nantes, in western France's Loire River Valley, but he liked the name of it, because 'gros plant' reminded him of the cinematic term 'gros plan' which means 'close-up.'

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JEAN GABIN WEEKEND IN LOS ANGELES, SEPT. 6 AND 7, 2008!

Well, here it is, everybody:

On Saturday September 6th and Sunday September 7th, the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theater, at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard, is celebrating the great French movie star/icon Jean Gabin with a two-evening tribute, featuring four great movies, and a book-signing with Charles Zigman (me!), the author of WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, VOLUMES ONE AND TWO (www.jeangabinbook.com). One of the films, the outstanding noir "Le Port du desir," a kind of 'waterfront Casablanca,' hasn't even been screened in the U.S., anywhere, since its initial release in 1959 -- almost fifty years ago.

Here's a link to the schedule for this event:

http://egyptiantheatre.com/archive1999/2008/Egyptian/Jean_Gabin_2008.htm

If you know anybody who loves Jean Gabin, or anybody who loves having a great night out at the movies, please let them know about the event.

The phone number for the American Cinematheque is (323)461-2020.

If you can't click on the above link for the program schedule, I've pasted it here:

__________________________________________
JEAN GABIN: THE WORLD’S COOLEST MOVIE STAR
September 6 & 7 at the American Cinematheque (Egyptian Theatre)
Program Notes by Chris D. (Director of Programming)

What can one say about French superstar Jean Gabin? If he’s not the “world’s coolest movie star” as proclaimed by the title of Charles Zigman’s entertaining and endlessly illuminating new biography of the actor (in two mammoth volumes!), he has to be up there in at least the Top 5. Gabin’s appeal, like that of Bogart, his American counterpart, relies on a quiet, unpretentious toughness, an unassailable integrity, a cynical -but not nasty - sense of humor and a classy, non-judgmental wisdom about people and the ways of the world. He projects his persona effortlessly, but forcefully, from the screen, the world-weariness and resigned, wisecracking fatalism of a wide-ranging array of characters, from tragic drifter to insightful patriarch. Join us for these Gabin gems, including the hard-to-see THE SICILIAN CLAN (in a new 35mm print!), the long-unavailable MOONTIDE, the ultra-rare HOUSE ON THE WATERFRONT and the French crime classic GRISBI. Author Charles Zigman will be signing and selling his new biography, "World’s Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin" each night preceding the screenings.

Series compiled by Chris D., with the assistance of Charles Zigman.
Special Thanks: Caitlin Robertson/20TH CENTURY FOX; Eric Di Bernardo/RIALTO PICTURES.



Saturday, September 6 - 7:30 PM
Jean Gabin Double Feature:
THE SICILIAN CLAN (LE CLAN DES SICILIENS), 1969, 20th Century Fox, 118 min. Expatriate Sicilian mobster Jean Gabin and his family shelter homicidal, lone wolf jewel thief Alain Delon after his daring escape from a prison van. Delon proposes a multi-million dollar jewel heist to Gabin that is fraught with danger, but the semi-retired patriarch signs on when he decides it will allow him to retire home to Sicily all the faster. But no one counts on dogged police inspector Lino Ventura (CLASSE TOUS RISQUES, SECOND BREATH) on Delon’s trail. Ventura is extra-surly from trying to kick cigarettes and channels all his frustrations into nabbing Delon and his accomplices. Director Henri Verneuil collaborated with Gabin and Delon on another earlier heist picture ANY NUMBER CAN WIN (MELODIE EN SOUS-SOL) in 1963. Ennio Morricone provides another memorable score. Dubbed-in-English version. NOT ON DVD

MOONTIDE¸ 1942, 20th Century Fox, 94 min. In the mythical California port of San Pablo (standing-in for San Pedro), hard-drinking longshoreman Bobo (Jean Gabin) becomes convinced by blackmailing comrade Tiny (Thomas Mitchell) that he has killed a man in an alcoholic black-out. Despairing Bobo simultaneously falls-in-love when he saves suicidal waitress Anna (Ida Lupino) from trying to drown herself. Gabin and Lupino are electric together, generating transcendental romantic chemistry, and Claude Rains as a barroom philosopher prefigures his chivalrous Frenchman in CASABLANCA.This was one of two films that Gabin made in America. Director Archie Mayo took over when original director Fritz Lang quit a few days into production. Charles G. Clarke’s luminous black-and-white cinematography was Oscar-nominated. Original English language version. Booksigning preceding the screening at 6:30 PM with Charles Zigman, author of The World's Coolest Movie Star: The
Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin Vol. 1 & 2.



Sunday, September 7 - 7:30 PM
Jean Gabin Double Feature:
HOUSE ON THE WATERFRONT (PORT DU DÉSIR), 1955, 94 min. Dir. Edmund T. Gréville (PRINCESS TAM-TAM). Jean Gabin is a disillusioned tugboat captain with a wayward daughter. He becomes embroiled in a plot to cover up a murder when tough young diver Henri Vidal is bribed by a gangster (Jean-Roger Caussimon) to retrieve a dead woman’s body from his sunken ship that is about to be salvaged. Co-starring Andrée Debar, Edith Georges. In French with English subtitles. NOT ON DVD

GRISBI (TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI), 1954, Rialto Pictutres, 88 min. Dir. Jacques Becker (CASQUE D’OR, LE TROU) Aging gangster Jean Gabin is sitting on a fortune in gold from a perfect heist - but sleazeball Lino Ventura decides he wants in on the action, with the help of a double-crossing chorus girl, Jeanne Moreau. This exquisite noir was passed over by the Cannes Film Festival because "it gave the wrong idea of French cinema" - it went on to become a huge hit and inspired a wave of crack crime films like BOB LE FLAMBEUR and RIFIFI. Booksigning preceding the screening at 6:30 PM with Charles Zigman, author of The World's Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin Vol. 1 & 2
___________________________________________________________________

Also: If you're not already a member of the American Cinematheque, please consider it. Not only is a membership tax deductible, but you get to see great movies where they're supposed to be -- on the big screen. http://americancinematheque.com/amcinebiz/jointhe.htm

Eastbound and Down: Jean Gabin Played a Trucker in Two Movies!

When you think about the great French movie star Jean Gabin, you think about the tragic drifter characters he used to play when he was La Bete humaine, or the smooth, white-haired patriarchs and gentleman-gangsters he often played when young, in movies like Quai des brumes, Le jour se leve, and La bete humaine, and he was older (in movies like Touchez pas au grisbi).

But did you know that Jean Gabin played a steely TRUCKER in two movies that were made in 1955 and 1956? If you're American, you don't, because neither of these two great movies were ever released in the United States, but if you're French, you know both of the films very well.

In 1956's Gas-Oil, Gabin plays trucker Jean Chape. When he accidentally runs over a man who's already dead, it turns out that the corpse was actually worth millions, and that a team of surly gangsters think, erroneously, that Chape has stolen the money off of the body. So they're after him. It's a really great movie, and it's the second and final time in which Gabin would appear opposite Jeanne Moreau, who appeared with him, the year before, in director Jacques Becker's Touches pas au grisbi. (In Grisbi, Moreau has a supporting role, but she's the female lead in Gas-Oil.)

In 1956's Des gens sans importance, Gabin is another fifty year old trucker; this time, we get a very smart movie about ageism, in which trucker Gabin falls in love with a woman thirty years his junior -- much to the detriment of his long (and unhappy) marriage. Henri Verneuil directed this great movie, which features a sublime harmonica score by Jean Weiner.

Maybe one of these days The Criterion Collection (or somebody!) will subtitle these two seminal Gabin works into English and releae them on DVD as a Trucker Gabin double feature. Until the day that happens, I'll continue to report to you, when I can, on other great Jean Gabin movies which were never subtitled into English, nor released in the United States.

Read about all of Jean Gabin's 95 movies in my book WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, VOLUMES ONE AND TWO, which may be ordered from www.jeangabinbook.com.