Grémillon applied his expert craftsmanship—including editing the movie—to bring home the story’s seduced-and-abandoned pathos. The leads of Pépé le Moko are reunited here, as legionnaire Jean Gabin suavely alights on new conquest Mireille Balin, expecting to quickly move on. Yet he can’t get her out of his mind, and once his posting changes he becomes increasingly desperate to rekindle what he sees as romance.

In French with English subtitles