One of two American made films that Jean Gabin did in Hollywood while in exile from his beloved France is this item Moontide. It's not anywhere in the class of The Grand Illusion, Pepe LeMoko, or La Bete Humaine in fact it goes over into melodrama. Still it's a good showcase for his talent and appeal.

Gabin is a happy go lucky sailor who is beached with his pal Thomas Mitchell in the small coast town of San Pablo in California. He's a nasty drunk however who can be provoked to violence and has been. Another waterfront denizen Arthur Aylesworth is killed and Gabin is tormented by the fact that he was on one big bender the night of the homicide and it could be him.

But that doesn't stop him from saving the life of Ida Lupino who tries to drown herself because of her own relationship problems. These two fall for each other and they plan to settle in San Pablo and marry. And of course there's no room for Mitchell in the new setup.

Which doesn't please Mitchell at all. He's basically a leech who's attached himself to Gabin and he doesn't want to give up his meal ticket. Claude Rains who is a droll waterfront philosopher calls him a pilot fish which is a fish that hangs around sharks and lives off the scraps they leave. Time for Mitchell to find another shark.

Given that this is the Code era and that a major studio 20th Century Fox produced Moontide the rather obvious homosexual attachment of Mitchell to Gabin is hard to miss. Perhaps that is something that the original director Fritz Lang might have explored a bit more. In fact the film could have been a classic had Lang stayed with it.

Still the cast acquit themselves well in Moontide and a film with Jean Gabin is always something special.

A Pacific coast juke joint is the setting for this melodramatic tale of attempted suicide, surprise love, rape and revenge. Pretty surprising stuff for Hollywood during the war years. The French New Wave, still in its infant stages, is more than obvious in this superb drama of near tragedy. Jean Gabin is an unforgettable hero who takes in the suicidal Ida Lupino after she shocks nighttime beach goers by a full-dressed late night swim. Furious at first for being saved, Lupino isn't angry for long and romance blossoms. But a jealous drunken pal of Gabin's (an unforgettable Thomas Mitchell) is out of control when it comes to his lust for the luscious Lupino and after the lovebirds head to the alter, their happiness is instantly threatened.

Gorgeously photographed, this very literary melodrama will grab you from the get-go, being very similar to another Archie Mayo directed drama, "The Petrified Forest" where tragic characters faced impending doom and accepted it. The pacing never lets the grip go. Mitchell is a far cry from his hot-tempered patriarch in "Gone With the Wind", yet shows multi dimensions as the nasty villain while Claude Rains offers sage wisdom in a smaller but vital role. Characters come in and out at an amazing speed but they all leave a mark.

Lupino is at first dark and mysterious then allows her loveliness to shine through without losing her characterization. Gabin isn't without faults as a tough guy who still has the capability to love but never loses his masculinity. The script moves effortlessly from dark social commentary to romance without losing its mood, and the result is a motion picture definitely ahead of its time that, like great art, simply improves with age. The mesmerizing confrontation between good and evil after tragedy strikes is a cinematic moment that will live in your mind forever.

Here we have the 28 year-old Ida Lupino, looking more like 19 or 20, and already the veteran of more than thirty films, being a frail, charming, and vulnerable waif. She is thoroughly convincing, and we would all like to take her in and look after her. This duty falls to the gruff Jean Gabin, a hard-drinking waterfront drifter from port to port, who has at some point arrived in the States from France. In fact, Gabin in real life had fled the Nazi Occupation and this was one of two American films which he made in exile. The film was supposed to be directed by Fritz Lang, who would have made it a moodier and darker piece. However, he was replaced by the more cheerful Archie Mayo, so we get a film whose real value is not as cinema but as encounter between Lupino and Gabin. That keeps us watching. Claude Rains gives bemused support as a California waterfront bum (hardly his usual type of role!) and Thomas Mitchell is an unctuous, scheming villain who has conned Gabin into thinking he has 'something on him'. The film is rather sinister, and in many ways pointless. If it weren't for Lupino and Gabin being so fascinating, nobody would bother to watch this movie, as it falls between many stools. But Lupino is so entrancing in this role, that presumably no one really cares about the story anyway. And listening to Jean Gabin speak heavily accented English in California is so extraordinary that one wants to watch that too. Who gives a damn about the film, we've got Lupino and Gabin, and that's all that matters. They could read the telephone directory as far as I am concerned, and I would still watch.