Daily Dialogue — June 16, 2012
Set-up: Pépé Le Moko (Jean Gabin / Charles Boyer) is a notorious thief, who escaped from France after his last great heist to Algeria. Since his escape, Moko became a resident and leader of the immense Casbah, or “native quarter,” of Algiers. French officials arrive insisting on Pépé’s capture are met with unfazed local detectives, led by Inspector Slimane (Lucas Gridoux / Joseph Calleia), who are biding their time. Meanwhile, Pépé begins to feel increasingly trapped in his prison-like stronghold, a feeling which intensifies after meeting the beautiful Gaby (Mireille Balin / Heddy Lamarr), who is visiting from Paris. His love for Gaby soon arouses the jealousy of Inès (Line Noro / Sigrid Gurie), Pépé’s Algerian mistress, who betrays his plans to escape to Paris with Gaby to the inspector.
Slimane: You see, Pépé, you showed up for our rendezvous. I knew I could count on you.
Pépé: Not here, Slimane.
Slimane: As you wish. I can’t refuse you anything.
Pépé: Be a sport, Slimane. I just want one thing. I can’t escape. Let me watch the boat sail. I promise I’ll stay right here.
Slimane: I know I can trust you.
Pépé: Gaby! (he stabs himself)
Inès: Pépé! Pépé! Forgive me.
— Slimane (Lucas Gridoux), Pépé (Jean Gabin), Inès (Line Noro), Pépé le Moko (1937), Henri La Barthe (novel), Henri La Barthe (scenario) & Julien Duvivier (scenario), Jacques Constant (adaptation), Henri Jeanson (dialogue)
Slimane: You see, Pépé, we meet at the appointed time. To tell the truth, I almost missed the appointment.
Pépé: Not here.
Slimane: As you wish. I can’t refuse an old friend.
Pépé: Let me wait here until it leaves. It’s not much to ask. I can’t get away.
Slimane: I know I can trust you.
Pépé: Gaby! (he runs) Gaby! Gaby! Gaby! Gaby! (he is shot) Gaby!
Slimane: I’m sorry, Pepe. He thought you were going to escape.
Pépé: And so I have, my friend.
Slimane (Joseph Calleia), Pépé (Charles Boyer), Algiers (1938), screenplay by John Howard Lawson, additional dialogue by James M. Cain, based on a novel by Henri La Barthe
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is originals and remakes, suggested by Saint716. Today’s suggestion by Shaula Evans.
Trivia: Animator Chuck Jones based the Warner Brothers cartoon character “Pepe le Pew” on the “Pepe le Moko” character played by Charles Boyer in this film.
Dialogue On Dialogue: This excellent background from Shaula:
Influence
Pépé le Moko was remade twice in America, as Algiers in 1938 and as the musical film Casbah in 1948. English author Graham Greene in a review of the film stated “One of the most exciting and moving films I can remember seeing… Raises the thriller to a poetic level!” According to a BBC documentary, it served as inspiration for Greene’s acclaimed novel, The Third Man.
Algiers was one of the sources of inspiration to the screenwriters of the 1942 Warner Brothers film Casablanca who wrote it with Hedy Lamarr in mind as the original female lead. According to the Turner Classic Movie channel, Charles Boyer’s depiction of the main character, Pepe Le Moko, was the inspiration for the Warner Brothers animated character, Pepe Le Pew. [Wikipedia]
“Without its iconic precedent there would have been no Humphrey Bogart, no John Garfield, no Robert Mitchum, no Randolph Scott, no Jean-Paul Belmondo (or Breathless or Pierrot le fou), no Jean-Pierre Melville or Alain Delon, no Steve McQueen, no Chinatown, no Bruce Willis, no movie-star heritage of weathered cool, vulnerable nihilism, bruised masculinity-as-cultural syndrome.”
– Michael Atkinson Criterion Collection Essay
Dialogue
Pépé le Moko was remade as Algiers shot for shot, with almost look-alike actors, as you can see in the two clips. The writing credits for Algiers list Henri La Barthe for his novel “Pépé le Moko” (as Detective Ashelbe), John Howard Lawson (screenplay), and James M. Cain (additional dialogue). Two things are interesting about the writing credits:
1. No credit is given to the writers of the original screenwriters of Pépé le Moko;
2. The “additional dialogue” credit is very interesting because while almost NO changes to existing dialogue is made, some scenes are “spelled out” more, as in the finale shown here.
[As I noted above, the Jim Jarmush remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 film Le Samouraï as the 1999 film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai also adds dialogue, in this case a huge amount, to “spell out” things implied in the original. Two examples do not a pattern make, but it sets me to wondering if American remakes of films from other countries are often more talky and on-the-nose-y than the originals.]
Lost in Translation: the dialogue I’ve listed for Pépé le Moko is taken from the English subtitles, not the actual French. The French is sometimes longer (as is often the case with subtitles); it looks like the American screenwriting team may have been working off a print of the film or a subtitle transcript, not the original French script, based on how closely the English dialogue adheres to the subtitles.
These clips show one of the biggest (and only) changes between the two versions: in the original, Pépé stabs himself rather than live without his beloved Gaby; in the remake, Pépé makes a run for it and is shot down by a rogue cop, followed by the last two lines of the film to tidy up the scene between Pépé and Slimane. I found it interesting that the Hollywood remake team chose to change the ending for an American audience, and felt the need to “explain” the ending in dialogue. (The American ending feels very spoon-fed to me compared to the French ending.)
Likewise, in the finale of Algiers, Slimane refers to Pépé as “an old friend” and with his last breath Pépé calls Slimane “my friend”. Their affinity isn’t spelled out in dialogue in Pépé le Moko, and yet I find that their friendship comes out stronger through the acting in the original film without the crutch of exposition.
One other note on the dialogue: the subtitles translate the French word “rendezvous” as the English loan-word “rendezvous” (which entered English from Middle French in 1591), but the American film replaces the word with “appointment”. According to the Google N-gram viewer, “appointment” was used more than 8 times more frequently than “rendezvous” in American English in the 1930′s, which may account for the rare divergence from the original film. I wonder, in addition, if the word “rendezvous” had romantic connotations to a 1930′s American audience that would make it inappropriate for a meeting between two men? I also wonder, given how closely Algiers follows the shots of Pépé le Moko, whether the screenwriters didn’t choose “appointment” over “meeting” to keep the syllable count the same and thus the timing of the dialogue the same.
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