Jean Renoir agreed to direct this noirish adaptation of Émile Zola’s 1890 novel because actor Jean Gabin had always wanted to drive a train.
Jean Renoir agreed to direct this noirish adaptation of Émile Zola’s 1890 novel because actor Jean Gabin had always wanted to drive a train. In the resulting film, the French icon’s passion for steam is evident as his soot-caked face looks out from the footplate of La Lison, on her approach to Le Havre. Gabin plays a train driver so riven with lust for Séverine (Simone Simon) that he agrees to kill her husband, the deputy stationmaster.