Best movie of this year hands down!

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

There's much to admire here - atmosphere, jazz-influenced soundtrack, noirish photography, Hazel Scott and, last but not least Jean Gabin and Danielle Darrieux (who gets a 'with the participation of ...' credit which means she doesn't turn up until halfway through the fourth reel and even then it's little more than an extended cameo). By the late fifties Gabin had made the transition from hood to flic - he played Maigret three times - and here he portrays a semi maverick Inspector investigating the murder of a nightclub boss. He enjoyed a long association with director Gilles Graingier who this time around seems to be under the influence of Jean-Pierre Melville, especially Bob, Le flambeur, although there's not a lot wrong with that. The one jarring not is the plot or lack of same which is unsatisfactory to say the least however there are compensations in the shape of Darrieux - who, if she makes it to the first of May, will celebrate her one hundredth birthday - and Gabin.

This film has some lovely strengths, beginning with beefy yet still-virile 1958 Gabin. He's always interesting to watch, and he carries a gravitas here that leaves one hanging on his every word.The film is set to a nice jazz score, including French and English songs from a black American entertainer at a time when Paris was more embracing of such talent than her native shores.I was less thrilled with the ditsy moll in this film, an actress I'd never seen before -- Nadja Tiller, who resembles both Natalie Wood and Jeanne Moreau but seriously lacks their talent. She was pretty but imbecilic and I was surprised the hard-boiled Gabin character fell for her at all. To view their non-sexual time together, it's clearly a case of a middle-aged man taking care of the child he never had and a psychologically underdeveloped girl seeking a substitute for her real, less-kind father. Another deficit in this film is the flimsy mystery at its heart. We start with an uninteresting murder victim and progress to a duplicitous pharmacist and mumbo jumbo about drug addiction. It wasn't easy to care much about who really done it. This isn't one of Gabin's masterpieces but if you're a fan of this handsome French hunk it won't be a total waste of your time.

Although the French made some terrific film noir movies, in some cases it's more than just the language that makes them different from their American counterparts. Take "The Night Affair", for example. It has a plot that NEVER would have been used in an American film of the day--unless major changes had been made in the plot. Keep reading and I think you'll agree.The film stars Jean Gabin as a police detective. This surprised me a bit, as in almost all the films I've seen him in, he's played a bad guy--a career criminal, a dangerous psychotic or a guy on the run from the law. However, the role seemed less surprising when I saw what sort of cop he was, as his moral compass was a bit impaired. This is apparent when he meets a very pretty lady who turns out to be a prostitute. He sleeps with her and the next day notices the tell-tale signs that she is a drug addict. Instead of dropping her or perhaps arresting her, however, he spends the rest of the movie running interference for her--even when it appears she might have committed murder.As I said above, the plot is NOT like an American film noir. While cops COULD be evil or have a misdirected ethical base, sleeping with a junkie is not something you're going to see in a 1950s American film.Now my comments are not necessarily a complaint. The film is well made and somewhat interesting--though it does drag a bit as the film progresses. It's worth seeing--mostly because Gabin's performance is his usual effortless and graceful job.

Jean Gabin is not playing Inspecteur Maigret here, but he is a detective investigating the murder of a night club owner who also deals heroin. Nadja Tiller plays a glamourous habituee of the club who falls for Gabin; she is also a junkie. Her scene of withdrawal is far from the gritty reality, she just seems to have a hangover and sweats a bit.I was impressed with Hazel Scott in a small part as the club's pianist-singer. This Barbadian-born performer married Adam Clayton Powell and had to leave the US in the Fifties because of her leftist politics. She was played by Vanessa L. Williams in a recent made for TV movie. On the basis of this small part, she could have had a career like Dorothy Dandridge's.