Zola's novels are deceptive :it's hard to make a truly bad movie from them while being harder still to really succeed.
Zola's book in the thirteenth volume in the Rougon-Macquart saga and is generally considered his masterwork,it is my favorite too.
Three versions were made in the writer's native land:a silent work (1913) I haven't seen ,this Allégret movie ,then a third one in 1993.
The biggest flaw is the choice of pretty boy Jean Sorel as the lead whereas it would have taken a powerful thespian such as Laurent Terzieff to do the character justice;he's definitely not a born leader of men and his harangues fall flat (if it convinces the miners ,they are naive).
Too much time is given over to love affairs :Catherine and Etienne,and his rival (played by Claude Brasseur);the love affair in the upper class between Hennebeau's wife and his nephew (renamed Paul) was a minor subplot which was not necessary in a 110 min film;this handsome engineer is engaged to Hennebeau's daughter Cécile ;It should be pointed out that in the book,Cecile was the Grégoire's daughter ;The Grégoire family were shareholders and they way they gave their handout to the starving and shivering Maheu children is a memorable chapter.
Hence ,not enough time for the plight of the miners: Alzire Maheu 's fate ,who dies of starvation ,is ruled out.We do not feel the cold,the filth,the sharp contrast with the affluent persons ' luxury :"we 're compelled to lower the wages on account of the economy" says a straight-faced and all the more hateful Hennebeau (Bernard Blier).We hardly feel the rebel stand against an unjust establishment ,the hatred for the Belgian strikebreakers .
The most successful moment is perhaps the pillage of Maigrat's store by the women who were given food by the obnoxious merchant in exchange for sexual relations.
As I wrote above ,it's hard to transfer successfully a Zola novel(* );Yves Allégret's work is not a bad movie,but it reduces one of the best works of the French literature to a reader's digest.
*Jean Renoir did succeed ,however,in "La Bete Humaine" .
