Andre Laurent, the captain of a tugboat, married Yvonne ten years ago. She has a heart disease but does not want to tell him. She dreams he quits his job so they can live quietly. One night, during a sea rescue, he meets Catherine. She wants to leave her husband, the captain of the rescued ship.

Jean Grémillon (1901-1959) seems to be a director who knows what he wants. He started this film as the war began (or just prior),and despite France being taken over by Germany, and having to reshoot some footage, he kept at it. And what we get is actually a really good movie. Sometimes I think Criterion releases their eclipse sets just to make a point of saying France, Japan, etc still had movies during World War II, and is not necessarily concerned about how influential or important they may be.

This one looks beautiful and surely had an impact. It reminds me of the sort of cinematography we got from the val Lewton-produced films.

Films like this were the bread and butter of French Cinema in the first two decades of Sound and this one boasts a glorious roster from Gremillon himself to Andre Cayette, an uncredited Charles Spaak and, of course, arguably the Greatest of them all, Jacques Prevert. In a film in which the sea is a major character it was a master stroke to begin the story on land and with a set piece, the wedding of one of the mariners which allows a natural chance to establish Gabin's Andre Laurent and hear his praises sung to the heavens then see him in happy domesticated mode, dancing with his wife of ten years and far from happy with his lifestyle though deeply in love with him. An S.O.S. call establishes that these men are the crew of an ocean-going tugboat who help ships in distress in return for a piece of the action. A second master stroke is the delayed appearance of Michele Morgan who we know is about to provide the love interest/temptation for Gabin. She turns out to be the 'wife' of the morally dubious captain of the distressed ship and can't wait to leave him. The fact that shooting began in 1939 only to be halted by the outbreak of war, resumed roughly one year later has led some viewers to see this as a bridge between the poetic realism of the late thirties and the Cinema of Occupation although personally I don't buy into this whilst relishing the Prevertian 'touch' of having Catherine (Morgan) hail from Le Havre which was, of course, the setting for the initial Gabin/Morgan movie Quai des Brumes. The couple of 'holes' in the script - Morgan's husband, reluctant to let her go, makes no attempt to trace her whilst she, with no visible means of support, appears to be living in a luxury apartment - are mere cavils and whichever way you slice it this is one to treasure.

Remorques is essentially a film about the ocean and its effects on the people associated with it; for the main character Capitaine André Laurent it introduces him to the mysterious Catherine, for André's wife Yvonne, the sea is what prevents her and her husband from living a quiet life, which is all that she wants.

The plot is simple to follow and the viewer is constantly drawn back to the sea, in almost every scene there is a reference to it, whether it be a beach in the background of the shot or the sound of a howling wind. The final scene was for me the strongest with the wind howling, the chanting of mournful voices accompanied by the images of the captain's tugboat and his journey through the sheets of rain, back to the sea.