Gabin plays a train driver so riven with lust for Séverine (Simone Simon) that he agrees to kill her husband, the deputy stationmaster.
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.