Jean Gabin - World's Coolest Movie Star?

[jdb1]

Have you seen the article on tcm.com touting a new book about Jean Gabin? The book is called World's Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin. The author is Charles Zigman.

I've been looking around the Net for information, and the same text that appears in the tcm.com article is all over. Who is Zigman? I see that he has some other books and articles on movies, but I'm not familiar with him. How old is he? The reason I ask his age is this excerpt from what appears to be a press release about the book:

VOLUME ONE, which has been subtitled "Tragic Drifter," takes us through Gabin's first forty-six films, including the internationally renowned "Grand Illusion" and "Pepe Le Moko," a period spanning the years 1930 to 1953, during which time he played movie history's most famous tragic drifter. During the 1930s and 1940s, Gabin's popularity in the U.S. nearly eclipsed that of Bogart, James Cagney, and Bette Davis. (Ever heard anybody say, "Come with me to the Casbah. We will make ze beautiful muzeek togezaire?" It was famously attributed to the character Jean Gabin portrayed in the 1937 gangster classic "Pepe Le Moko," even though he never actually uttered those words. In fact Gabin's 'Pepe' character even inspired Warner Bros. to create its legendary cartoon skunk, Pepe Le Pew, whose looks and voice were modeled on the actor.)

So - I'm assuming this text is a precis of Zigman's information. Has Zigman never heard of Charles Boyer? Is he serious in saying that Gabin was more popular than Bogart, et al. in the US during the 30s and 40s? Is this a matter of oversell in order to build up his subject in the minds of the younger American reading public (if there is such a thing)? In the words of Queen Latifah in Scary Movie 3: Is you crazy?

Now look, Gabin was pretty hot (and/or cool), but he made only two films in the US. I'm not saying he wasn't terrific, but how wildly popular could his French output have been here, especially during wartime in the 40s? (And here I've been under the impression for years that the title "World's Coolest Movie Star" belonged to Steve McQueen.)

What do you think? Accurate measure of Gabin's popularity and impact on American cinema? Movie history's most famous tragic drifter? Or hero-worshipping hyperbole? And do we even want to read this two-volume work?

[Ann Harding]

Jean Gabin was a great great movie actor of French cinema. I don't think that any of his English-speaking movies are 'important'.
But he is a very important figure of world cinema. The films he made in the 30s called 'poetic realism' (Quai des Brumes, Le Jour se Lève) are probably the first ever films noirs. He had an acting range that was pretty amazing and could look and act natural while being the result of some pretty hard work.

I realise that a lot of his output is not well-known in the US. Though Criterion has released a lot of his films. I have no idea if he was really popular in the US in the 30s and 40s.....but I guess probably not -unless you were a great connoisseur of foreign films. After all, foreign films were not distributed widely in the US in those days.

[jdb1]

I agree with you completely. My quarrel is not with the excellence and worldwide celebrity of Gabin, but with the inflated rhetoric of this book. My point is that most readers will accept as gospel what Mr. Zigman has written, merely because he has taken the time to write it, and they haven't the enterprise to go any further than the pages of his book.

How can Zigman say that the oft-quoted "Come with me to the Casbah" would make any American think of Jean Gabin, and not of Charles Boyer, especially since Boyer said something like it an English-language film? And it has certainly been widely acknowledged by the powers that be at Warner Brothers that it was Boyer who was the object of the Pepe LePew cartoon character parody. It's my constant refrain about today's publishing industry: weak scholarship on the part of the writers, and no backup at all from their editors.

I have my parents as a gauge for the degree of celebrity of stars of the 30s and 40s. They were both avid and sophisticated moviegoers, and since my father spoke French, he was cognizant of French, and indeed, most major European, stars. I have no particular memories of either of them ever saying "Wow, that Jean Gabin. I liked him much better than I liked Bogart!"

If this is any indication of the quality of Zigman's book, I'd say the great Gabin has been very ill-served.

[Ann Harding]

Judith, I think this kind of over-inflated and stupid rhetoric is now very common alas......To sell books publishers would go to any length and let PR machine write the most idiotic and inaccurate slogan....

I don't know what this book is like, but, as you say it's a bad omen. If you can read French, the best biography of Gabin was written by André Brunelin (who knew him personaly and worked as his secretary for while).

[Mr. Arkadin]

Gabin was an amazing talent and the films Ann Harding mentioned (under their English titles) Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939) are indeed amazing performances. He is also great in Renoir's The Human Beast (1936) which was remade by Fritz Lang as Human Desire (1954) and The Lower Depths (same year).

As for his American films, Moontide (1942) is not bad at all (I wish TCM would play it), but it's not on the level of his earlier French output. I would like to see more of his films, but they are a bit hard to get hold of in the U.S..

I do agree that this writer has overstated his popularity (but perhaps not his influence) in the States. Perhaps to sell a book?

[jdb1]

I saw, and wrote here about Moontide a few months ago (it was on Fox). I loved Gabin in this. Even though he seemed to struggle a bit with his English, his forceful personality carried him through this minor film with flying colors. With the right handling, he could have been a real "contender" in American films and reached a far wider audience.

By the way, I am so disturbed by that silly press release that I wrote to TCM this morning to point out that they have really dropped the ball on this one. If their viewers can't count on them for accurate information about classic movies, what does that say about their commitment to popularizing those movies and their stars with today's generation?

[moira finnie]

During the 1930s and 1940s, Gabin's popularity in the U.S. nearly eclipsed that of Bogart, James Cagney, and Bette Davis.

That sounds like hype to me too, Judith.
However, using what I know of my French and German speaking parent's lives during the '30s & '40s in the NYC area and in Europe as a gauge, I know that Jean Gabin, and his best known films such as Pepe Le Moko (1937), La Bête Humaine (1938) and La Grande Illusion (1938) were very well known among alert Americans in that period. I also think that Americans in general were far less insular than they are today and much more aware of cultural trends in Europe and of trends in what may have been the world's cultural capital at the time, Paris.

Personally, I'll take Gabin anyway I can get him, but, my favorite period for his work begins around the time of Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954) when he started to look like a tired lion.

[Mr. Arkadin]

my favorite period for his work begins around the time of Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954) when he started to look like a tired lion.

Great film!

[charliechaplinfan]

I've been lucky enough to see some of Jean Gabin's films of the thirties, a great actor, such presence on the screen. He has had a good DVD release here in England but I wish some more would be released.

Christine, in the history of French cinema is he ranked as one of the greats, like a Bogart to American cinema?

[Ann Harding]

Hi Alison: Of course! Gabin is one of the most important figure of French cinema, and rightly so: he worked with Carné, Renoir, Grémillon, Duvivier, Ophüls, Decoin, Becker, Litvak.... In the 30s, he made about a dozen masterpieces. Do I need to say more?

[charliechaplinfan]

I'd love to get a good book on French cinema and Italian if possible. That's my next project, to search out one.