The White Truck (1943) User Reviews (2)

a special road movie

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 7/10 · 25 August 2017]

I don't remember any masterpiece in Leo Joannon's filmography, just good films like "Le Carrefour des Enfants Perdus" and "Caprices".

And "le Camion Blanc" is another pleasant surprise, the story of a young truck driver (François Périer) who has to drive the mummy of the gypsy king through all the roads of his life until the beginning. He will have to go through gypsy competition for the new gypsy king with ambushes on the road. He is driving a 15 tons truck (the Willeme 2450 R.N.1.), a real and impressive character (and of course, we see a few old gas stations that surely do not exist anymore). Everybody's great from Jules Berry to Blanchette Brunoy, from Charpin to Jean Parédès, and a very special gypsy queen widow unforgettably played by Marguerite Moreno.

"le Camion Blanc" is certainly not a masterpiece, but rather a pleasant movie with nothing particularly exciting.

On the DVD edition just released in France, it is announced 90 minutes, when it is registered 112 minutes on Ciné-resources. There is even a picture on the jacket that doesn't appear in the movie, where is the mistake, a reel is missing?

Le Salaire De La Sueur.

[dbdumonteil · 27 October 2017]

It was all the more surprising that Leo Joannon should choose a screenplay dealing with the gypsies in 1943 occupied France since they were persecuted by the Nazis :see for that matter Tony Gatlif's "Korkoro " (2009) in which gypsies were played by real ones.

Here the gypsy king's heir is played by Jules Berry and his widow by Marguerite Moreno,both marvelous actors though.

François (François Périer) is a mechanic in love with the garage owner's daughter,Germaine(Blanchette Brunoy) .A mysterious man, Monsieur Shabbas(Berry), hires him as a truck driver.The young man marvels at the brand new white vehicle.Much to his surprise ,he has to convey the king of the gypsies' embalmed dead body on a strange itinerary:it encompasses all the French roads the late monarch traveled on in his lifetime.It won't be exactly restful,for,all along the road,strange enemies put a spoke in his wheel.It's actually a fight against the northern gypsies whose chief is none other than Shabbas and the southern ones ,abetted by Charpin!Along the eventful travel, false signposts , shortage of diesel oil,the precious white truck gets even stuck in the sands near the Mont Saint Michel!They have to call upon the elephants ' service.And the Périer/Peredès/Moreno threesome rises to the occasion.

The beginning of the movie is strange indeed : Shabbas is looking for a young man , born on the 21st of August at noon ,a virgin (?)lad who has never killed .Maybe the screenwriters let the cat out of the bag too soon, but this road movie retains a certain charm,a sense of mystery :although not played by gypsies,these quasi-secret ceremonies are decidedly bewitching,without becoming ridiculous ,like Joannon's Christian movies of the fifties.