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| Impressionistic style dramatic poster for Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine |
QUICK REVIEW:
In La Bête Humaine, we get involved in a ménage a trois, whereof one character is really more furtive and unsympathetic than the next, and yet French master director Jean Renoir (The Rules of the Game (1939)) succeeds in making endearing characters out of at least two of these, the two played by Jean Gabin (Le Grande Illusion (1937)) and Simone Simon (Cat People (1942)). The latter is as sweet as honey and as dangerous as a true femme fatale simultaneously in this fine pre-WWII adaptation.
SPOILER The finalizing murder is shocking and took me unawares, and it comes on top of a mildly speaking oddly arranged start and middle.
The train, where most of the film plays out, has been described as the fourth main character in the film, and it was what set off the production, as Gabin was looking to make a train picture. Personally, I share Gabin's fondness for the train locale in films, and this only heightened my enjoyment of Renoir's Émile Zola (La Joie de Vivre (1884)) adaptation La Bête Humaine ('The Human Beast'), which is truly a dark and troubling film. Its timing right before the terrible waste and bloodsheds of WWII feels eerily appropriate.
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| The train motif adorns this cover of Zola's book |
Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
What do you think of this dark triangle of love, lust and murder?
What other fine train movies do you remember?
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