Mireille Balin is convincing as the sophisticated woman a man cannot stop wanting. Her work is worth seeking out, though Pépé le Moko shows how little room these roles could leave for her characters’ desires.
Fi1m perspective
In Pépé le Moko (1937), Mireille Balin makes Gaby believable even when the screenplay seems interested chiefly in what Pépé sees in her. Her assurance matters: this Parisian woman has to be someone worth all his longing, and Balin supplies the confidence and sophistication the part calls for. We believe in the attraction. She makes a familiar figure worth watching without being given much opportunity to show what the woman wants for herself.
Le Roman d’un spahi (1936), in which she played Cora, had already put her in the adventuress mould before Gaby became her breakthrough. Julien Duvivier’s film was the first of two pairings with Jean Gabin; Jean Grémillon directed the second, Gueule d’amour (1937). As Madeleine, she brings vulnerability to a kept woman who might otherwise be easy to dismiss. These parts ask for elegance and confidence, but Balin’s value lies in making the women seem capable of feeling something beyond satisfaction at their effect on men.
Line Noro’s more immediate Inès makes the thinness of Gaby’s part harder to overlook in Pépé le Moko. Duvivier and co-screenwriter Henri La Barthe spend more time on Pépé’s feelings than on what either woman wants. We were frustrated by how little we learnt about Gaby’s wishes, because Balin had made us interested in her. That is a fault in a film we otherwise admire, and it should not be mistaken for evidence that Balin could do no more.
The similar parts continued into the 1940s, including Macao, l’enfer du jeu (1942), before her final film, La dernière chevauchée (1947). Balin herself spoke of finding weakness in good women and virtues in bad ones. It is a more useful way to approach her than assuming the elegant woman must be as cold as she looks. Begin with Pépé le Moko, then try Gueule d’amour to see what another director could do with the same pairing.
Biography
Mireille Balin was a French actress. She was born on 19 July 1909 in Monte Carlo, Monaco, and died on 9 November 1968 in Clichy, France.
Balin appeared in two of the best-remembered French films of the 1930s, both opposite Jean Gabin: Pépé le Moko (1937), in which she played Gaby, and Lady Killer (1937), in which she played Madeleine Courtois. She continued working through the early 1940s before retiring from film after La dernière chevauchée (1947).
Following the German occupation of France, Balin was imprisoned for a period after the liberation; she lived the final years of her life in reduced circumstances.
