Daybreak (1939)
"Le jour se lève" (original title)

After committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events the led him to the killing.

Director:

Marcel Carné

Writers:

Jacques Viot (original scenario), Jacques Prévert (dialogue)

Stars:

Jean Gabin, Jules Berry, Arletty

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Jean Gabin	...	François
Jules Berry	...	M. Valentin
Arletty	...	Clara
Mady Berry	...	La concierge
René Génin	...	Le concierge (as Genin)
Arthur Devère	...	Mr. Gerbois (as Arthur Devere)
René Bergeron	...	Le patron du café (as Bergeron)
Bernard Blier	...	Gaston
Marcel Pérès	...	Paulo (as Peres)
Germaine Lix	...	La chanteuse
Gabrielle Fontan	...	La vieille dame dans l'escalier
Jacques Baumer	...	Le commissaire
Jacqueline Laurent	...	Françoise

Storyline

Francois, a sympathetic factory worker, kills Valentin with a gun. He locked himself in his furnished room and starts remembering how he was led to murder. He met once Francoise, a young fleurist, and they fell in love. But Francoise was gotten round by Valentin, a dog trainer, a machiavellian guy...

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Plot Keywords:

murder | gun | dog | factory | factory worker | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Romance | Thriller

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

29 July 1940 (USA)

Also Known As:

Daybreak

Filming Locations:

Paris-Studio-Cinéma, Paris, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Productions Sigma

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min 88 min (Janus print)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Wide Range Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

While not the first film to use dissolves to represent flashbacks, it was considered too new a method in the language of cinema that the films producers' insisted on pretitle cards to avoid any confusion.

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Quotes

M. Valentin: You're the type women fall in love with . . . I'm the type that interests them.

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Connections

Featured in Un compositeur pour le cinéma: Maurice Jaubert (1985)

User Reviews

Before the flood.

That was one of the last French masterpieces of the thirties just before the war.Marcel Carné was accused of pessimism and the movie was quickly forbidden by the military censorship that used to say in 1940:"if we've lost the war,blame it on "Quai des Brumes""(Carné's precedent movie.The director answered:"you do not blame a barometer for the storm"). "Le jour se lève " is,if it's possible,darker than its predecessor. From the very beginning,the hero,a good guy (Gabin) is doomed,his fate is already sealed,because the tragedy has already happened .That's why the movie is a long flashback.The memories are brought back on the screen with an astounding virtuosity by some elements of the set (the teddy bear for instance).Only three main characters outside that of Gabin,the evil one (Berry who was to play the devil in "les visiteurs du soir "1942),the lucid one (Arletty) and the ambiguous one (Jacqueline Laurent).The latter provides

the only flaw of the movie:Laurent acts Françoise as the innocent pure girl,however Carné leaves no doubt about her relations with Berry. A remake was made by Anatole Litvak with Henry Fonda ,Barbara Bel Geddes and Ann Dvorak (who must have been studying Arletty's acting for a long while),called "the long night" with an absurd happy end. Needless to say,it's the French Carné movie that you've got to see!