Trailer for Arte: Two years in the making with Jean Gabin, but what happened?

We are in 1939. Jean Gabin recently directed Coral Coral by Maurice Glaze and Le Jour se lève by Marcel Carnet. The actor is confident that he will find director Jean Gremion, with whom he made Gueule d’amour (1937), and Michel Morgan, with whom he recently made Le Récif de Coral, with whom he said: “You have beautiful eyes, you know” In the cauldron of mists.

Gabin / Morgan, return

Their new project is called Remorques, a story about a tugboat captain called to rescue the ship’s passengers. With this, he will start an extramarital relationship. Filming began in July 1939 in Brest, Brittany. The shooting needs a little delay, the desired storm scenes are not happening, but nothing serious. At least compared to what follows*.

Cameras will be moving to the Bilancourt studio in the Paris region from August 11. Except that we are in 1939 and the beginning of what is called World War II. Several members of the technical team have been called. And given the dramatic context, Gabin has no heart to turn back. Moreover, he, along with Jean Gremion and others, had been mobilized since September 3, the date of France’s entry into the war.

Only at the insistence of producer Joseph Lukacevich and the Ministry of the Navy did the Remorques team, including Gabin, finally manage to meet on 6 May 1940 for the 25 days of filming required to complete the project. The scene at the rental agency can’t be boxed and ends up being cut.

There remains the issue of post-production: Germany invades France, the producer, a German Jewish emigre, leaves for the United States, and the reels (which he has begun to edit) escape to Marseilles with editor Marcel Craven. in the free zone.

The Germans reauthorized French cinema production to resume, and Jean Gremion resumed editing in August 1941. Additional stormy scenes were redone with models in the studio, and the film was (finally) finished in September, two years after the first crack.

The film was released on November 27, 1941, when Jean Gabin was living in the USA with Marlene Dietrich. Despite the circumstances and after so much turmoil in its production, Trailers became a huge public success. In 1943 Gabin enlisted in the French fighting forces as a gunner. Two years later he took part in the German campaign and then finally returned to France.

Scarred by the conflict, Gabin, physically altered, struggles to regain his pre-war popularity and will only return to the bill through hard work. But that’s another story.