Victor (1951) User Reviews (4)

Viky Victor.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 6/10 · 16 April 2018]

During the French challenge on ICM,I've started looking out for rare DVDs that sellers have recently tracked down. Being unable to find any sign of this being around with Eng Subs online, I was happily taken aback when a DVD seller revealed that he had located a version with Subs,which led to me happily getting set to meet Victor.

View on the film:

Appearing to be made on a low budget,co-writer/(with Henri Bernstein and Jean Ferry) director Claude Heymann & cinematographer Lucien Joulin look towards the Poverty Row style of the US-complete with creaking floorboards,a terribly shot plane crash and a limited snippets of score. Offering some bright spots to the poverty production, Heymann stylishly uses mirrors for 2-shots that reflect Victor's desires. Waving him goodbye from jail,the writers initially give Victor's return to society a unique twist,by making this Film Noir loner sincerely attempt to stay on the straight and narrow.

Re-lighting the flames of love in his life, the writers disappointingly lock a continuation of Film Noir atmosphere in jail,in order to free a flat Melodrama mood that crashes the title with a rushed ending.Whilst waiting for bigger and better roles to arrive, Jean Gabin gives a fitting amount of grit to the just freed Victor,whilst Françoise Christophe gives a much needed dose of elegance as Françoise Pélicier,for a far from victorious film.

To The Victor ...?

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 14 March 2017]

... Helas, non. Whilst it would be foolhardy to dismiss any film in which Jean Gabin features the interests of truth must be served and this is ho hum at best. It belongs to what might be described as the second/middle period of Gabin's career: The first period lasted roughly ten years - 1930=1940 - and saw him rise from headliner in Music- Hall through supporting roles to top male actor in Franch cinema; the second period - 1941-1954 - saw him defect to Hollywood at the outbreak of war (and though he subsequently joined the French Navy and continued to make movies he couldn't get arrested) until he took a leading role in Jacques Becker's Touchez-pas au grisbi in 1954 and immediately resumed his place as a leading light in French cinema. Victor comes roughly halfway through the second period and has virtually nothing to recommend it. Gabin plays a nice-guy hood, happy to take a fall on behalf of his boss in order to continue an affair with the boss's wife. Then, much as he did in La Marie du port, he falls for a younger girl and strikes it rich. The script's idea of a twist is for the boss, on his deathbed, to get Victor to promise to look after his wife. If this is the sort of stuff you like then you'll like this sort of stuff.

a post war Gabin ...

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 5/10 · 31 August 2017]

... and quite boring, directed in 1951 when he was out of good scripts and good directors. Gabin is still a great lover and I love the scene when he decides to quit Françoise devoted to her luxury, I imagine the same real scene with Marlene Dietrich just a few years before, Gabin was very direct. The whole movie has no surprises. Like a lot of french films, it begins with a convict coming out of the Parisian jail la Santé, having rendez-vous in front in the restaurant "A la Bonne Santé" (which doesn't exist anymore). Cheers.

No victory for Victor.

[dbdumonteil · 3 August 2014]

Claude Heymann worked with Renoir and Bunuel but it does not make him an interesting director for all that ;Raimu and Michel Simon saved "Les Jumeaux De Brighton" but his co-director Yves Mirande did not help him make " Paris-New-York" a memorable effort.

And Gabin himself,at a time when his career was on the wane ,was not able to do anything with this banal melodrama ,based on a play which must be stodgy :he fails totally to convince in his part of a good man ,ready to sacrifice his future to his friend (or to be precise,his friend's wife he loves).And what a future!no sooner had he been released from jail(on parole,but his name will be cleared ,icing on the cake)that he sold his patent for 14 million !The screenplay is full of clichés from the woman who does not want to give up luxury to the plane crash (filmed in a very cheap way)!