Julien Duvivier - The 1930s

The 1930s

In the 1930s Duvivier was part of the production company, 'Film d'Art', founded by Marcel Vandal and Charles Delac and he worked as part of a team. He stayed with them for nine years. David Golder (1930), was his first success. It was also his first 'talkie', as it was of the actor Harry Baur. They worked together many more times in the 1930s. In 1934 Duvivier collaborated with Jean Gabin for the first time in the film Maria Chapdelaine, while for La Bandera (1935), he availed himself of the writing talent of Charles Spaak, who had previously worked with Jacques Feyder, Jean Gremillon, Marc Allégret and Marcel L'Herbier. They too would work together many times from this point onwards. Having made Le Golem (1936), a remake of an earlier German horror film, Duvivier set out on La belle équipe (also 1936), with Jean Gabin, Charles Vanel and Raymond Aimos. The film remains a significant example of his work. Five unemployed men hit the lottery jackpot and decide to buy a seaside café/dance hall together. The unexpected however, keeps happening. Once jealousy over a woman, Gina, (Viviane Romance), gets mixed up with the venture, there is little left to save. The original ending of the film involving a killing, was judged too pessimistic, and another, happier ending, was filmed. It was the happier version that was released, though both versions still survive. L'Homme du jour (1936), with Maurice Chevalier in the lead role is a minor work in the director's canon but Pépé le Moko and Un Carnet de Bal (both 1937) are incontestable summits.

Pépé le Moko which plunges into the midst of the gangster underworld, and which had the Casbah (Arab quarter) of Algiers for exotic backdrop, was the film which propelled Jean Gabin into the category of an international star. In 1938 Duvivier signed a contract with MGM and made his first American film, a biopic of Johann Strauss, The Great Waltz. The next year, back in France, he made La Fin du Jour, in which theatre actors in retirement struggle to see that their retirement home remains open. Michel Simon played an old ham actor, and Louis Jouvet, an old leading actor who still believes in his seductive powers. La Charrette fantôme followed, a horror film adapted from a novel by Selma Lagerlof. In 1940 Untel père et fils, a family history starring Raimu, Michèle Morgan, and Jouvet, was not able to be shown - because of the political situation - until the end of the war, at least in France. It is generally considered a minor work, and even a failure.