I giganti

Trucker Jean Gabin is doing as many hauls as possible. He's got a new, big rig to pay off. After an evening with his girlfriend, teacher Jeanne Moreau, it's off at 5 in the morning to pick up a load. Except her runs over a guy who's lying in the middle of the road. The police take his statement, impound his truck, and try to get him to confess he'd been drinking the night before. He goes mad for a while, but Mlle Moreau tells him she's resigned and is moving into his place, and he gets his rig back. And then some guys in a grey sedan start shadowing him, and the dead man's widow, Ginette Leclerc, asks him about a case with millions of francs in it her husband had been carrying.

One of the pleasures of watching Gabin act is that whatever he's playing, that's who he is. Here he's a trucker, and you don't doubt that Gabin could get into the cab of a heavy truck and drive it perfectly. He rarely gives a layered performance. He's just a guy, like Cagney, who plants his feet, looks the camera head on, and tells the truth.

It's one of the many movies Gabin made with Gilles Grangier in the decade, relying on Gabin's star power to attract a good cast and tell a simple story. Here, it's also about the community of the proleteriat, the truck drivers and the shippers, out against the liars and thieves, and the police have very little to do with it. It's not a great movie, but the cast, particularly Gabin, carries it quite easily.