MOONTIDE (1942)

A character-driven melodrama which plays out like a noir version of Steinbeck's "Cannery Row." Jean Gabin is Bobo, a guy who lives on the waterfront doing odd jobs on boats that dock in the bay. He's likeable but he drinks too much, though we never know what brought him to his current state. He is shadowed by crusty old Thomas Mitchell; first we think Mitchell's a pal, but we soon see him in a different light as a potentially cruel leech. One night, Gabin stops Ida Lupino from committing suicide and the two develop a relationship, helping each other to stay propped up and on the straight and narrow. When harmless Pop Kelly is found murdered, clues point to Gabin as a suspect (he might have done it during a drunken blackout), and the situation threatens to derail the tentative happiness that Gabin and Lupino have found. It turns out that Mitchell has a couple of secrets that lead to a fairly exciting climax. Claude Rains is almost unrecognizable (looking a bit like Barry Fitzgerald) as a barroom philosopher; Jerome Cowan is a middle-class doctor with a mistress, though his storyline doesn't come to much. In fact, the real problem here is that all the plotlines and characters never really come together. It feels like we're supposed to buy into the idea of this nurturing waterfront community, but not enough is done with the supporting characters. There is some nice atmosphere, lots of fog, and a stagy set that manages to be nicely evocative. There are a couple of big names behind the scenes: author John O'Hara wrote the screenplay, and Fritz Lang directed (though he was replaced at some point by Archie Mayo). [FMC]