In retrospect it's fascinating to note that one of the elements that launched what is arguably the greatest writer-director team in French cinema would be responsible for its demise exactly one decade later. Within that decade - 1936/46 - Jacques Prevert and Marcel Carne' jointly wrote and directed Jenny, Drole de Drame, Quai des Brumes, Les Visiteurs du Soir, Les Enfants du Paradis and Les Portes de la nuit. The last title, released in 1946 included an element of fantasy in the shape of a 'pure' romance set in the 'real' world of black markets, racketeering, collaboration etc which audiences found unacceptable in that firs full post-war year. In Jenny their initial collaboration which has long eluded me and which I have at last been able to view thanks to the generosity of the altruistic IMDb contributor I have had occasion to thank previously, a similar element is present via another 'pure' love between the 'innocent' daughter of a night club/bordello manager and a gangster who, somewhat improbably, starts behaving like an adolescent - picnics in the country, lover's games etc. On paper the story is pure melodrama - Carne had been an Assistant to Jacques Feyder on four movies and when Feyder wanted a 'vehicle' for his wife, Francoise Rosay, Carne' was given his chance behind the camera - the eponymous Jenny (Rosay) manages a night club which is little more than a bordello with a liquor license on behalf of the owner Benoit (Charles Vanel); inevitably she has a daughter (Lisette Lanvin) whom she packed off to London lest she discover Mommy's real job but who returns to Paris as the film starts. Around this time Jenny gets romantically involved with Albert Prejean a mobster to the chagrin of Benoit who tells his henchman Dromadaire (Jean Louis Barrault) to have a 'talk' to Prejean. Equally inevitably the daughter 1) discovers Jenny's secret and 2) falls for Prejean herself making for conflict all round. Like I said we're talking meller here BUT we're also talking Jacques Prevert who was incapable of writing anything but shining, pithy, poetic prose and his screenplay plus Carne's sure-footedness with a large cast lift this out of the rut and turn it into a Major League entry. And oh for those far-off days when PC was unheard of and Prevert could call the hunchbacked Barrault Dromedaire (dromedary) with no one thinking anything of it (note: in the IMDb credits they've changed Barrault's name to Camel, presumably reasoning that IMDb readers wouldn't know what a dromedary was).
Review of Jenny
