I'm not super familiar with the French films of the 1930s, the era of poetic realism. Sometimes films from different periods and cultures can intimidate when you read about them because other people have so much more familiarity with them.
This is apparently one of the better known movies from the time. It was made by Jacques Feyder who directed some English language films including Knight Without Aarmoud..
Pierre Richard-Willm plays a playboy who lives beyond his means while romancing Marie Bell. He winds up embezzling, getting busted, and his family tell him he has to hot tail it to the colonies in disgrace (I thought this was a British thing but clearly it happened in France too.... what happens now without colonies to cover up scandals?) Willm's romance with Bell is cynically depicted at the star - she won't go with him basically because he won't have any money.
He runs off to the Foreign Legion, and meets a prostitute, who practically has "I am a tragic figure" tattooed across her forehead.He tries to turn her into a version of his old love. He winds up killing a barman, they cover it up, he comes into money, runs into his ex... it's pretty soapie, i.e. melodramatic, but effective.
The photography is gorgeous, the acting very fine, the story moves ahead with decent twists and turns. The female characters are either tragic hookers or shallow mistresses or jovial but tragic bartenders; the men are tormented by the women but would rather hang out with other men.
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