Sous le signe du taureau

When it was released,the movie was slagged off as cinema de papa ,old hat ,you name it; Okay Gabin's great films ,it's Carné,Duvivier and Renoir ! But it does not mean that the other ones are all turkeys. In 1969, the person who would go and see a Gabin movie was par excellence the guy who had not got a clue about the true cinema ,the meaningful one ,and he was despised by the highbrows.

Gilles Grangier is Saturday-night-at the-movie style ,and he knows the tricks of the trade; a good craftsman who would give the people what they wanted .And when he'd got a writer such as Michel Audiard at hand , his movies were often enjoyable .

An industrialist,who studied at the Ecole Centrale (prestigious college of engineering) , sees his latest rocket explode and his business in jeopardy.

Gabin seems cast against type but his persona is not far away: when he has launched his rocket, he goes straight to the bistro ; he was certainly born a prole and he succeeded by himself with a hard work or scholarships ; he is not at ease with his peers (his brother-in-law hates him)who ,after his failure,wait for his fall .Everyone turns their back on him,no one answers his phone calls ......

It's not an action-packed film , but rather a wandering through a world where the hero was reluctantly accepted ;filmed partly in Rouen ,notably on a scrapyard whose owner cashed in on all sides during the war.

The biggest flaw is the wife's final deus ex machina .But the great Suzanne Flon makes it worthwhile ; Gabin gets strong support from the excellent supporting cast (Michel Auclair, Alfred Adam,even Fernand Ledoux ) .True to himself , that is to say surlier than ever,it's the French audience's beloved Gabin.