Gabin vs Gamera...

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I've been watching a lot of films recently, such as several early films by Brian de Palma ("Obsession", "Blow Out"..) and as per usual some random choices such as the films of Julien Duvivier, currently available on Criterion, but haven't reviewed many as regularly for various reasons.

I watched Julien Duvivier's 1936 Jean Gabin starrer, "La Belle Equipe" (Eng: "They Were Five") yesterday, not knowing much about it other than being aware that Gabin was a huge star of French cinema in the post-war period and is always watchable. It's a story of five no-hopers living in the same Parisian tenement who unexpectedly come into a lot of money as a result of a lottery win after they are form a lottery syndicate of best friends. Gabin plays "Jeannot" and is clearly the dominant character of the five who all have hopes of realising their individual dreams thanks to their equal share of the lottery winnings - Gabin's "Jeannot" has a relatively modest dream of being able to buy the "Westminster" chiming clock that he dreamt of as a child while the youngest of the group, "Jacques" hopes to escape France and poverty altogether for a new life in Canada. The outlier of the group, "Charlot" (Charles Vanel) and Jeannot's oldest friend, is less open about his expectations and appears troubled.

Gabins' "Jeannot" persuades his gang to give up their personal dreams to keep their friendship intact by agreeing to buy a plot of land and building a self-sufficient property by a river to attract passing customers to a restaurant with entertainments, which they agree to and despite many hardships Jeannot's dream is fulfilled. To cut to the chase, the dream of five friends soon comes apart at the seams due to the intervention of women who appear in the form of "Huguette" (Micheline Cheirel) the girlfriend of "Mario" (Raphaël Médina) a foreigner who is on the run from the authorities due to his immigration status, and the beautiful "Gina" (Viviane Romance), ex-wife of "Charlot", who is after some of his winnings. Viewed retrospectively the theme of the film could be viewed as being somewhat misogynistic and has echoes in Antonio Pietrangeli's 1960 film "Adua and Her Friends" which follows a similar plot arc and a gender swap and where the women's solidarity and friendship is tested by Adua's affair with her boyfriend, a dodgy car dealer.

Researching the film I came across another film from 1952 with the same title which appears inspired by or adapted from Duvivier's film, though there is little information online about it other than a Wikipedia entry but does suggest that the central theme of the film, that of a group of friends who drift apart over time - is timeless.

With that in mind I uncovered what could be the most unexpected connection between two films that are superficially from vastly different genres.

The writer, Niisan Takahashi, as a fan of Duvivier's film and writer of the Japanese "Kaiju" film "Gamera vs Barugon", a 1966 entry in a series of "Gamera" films, reveals that he was inspired by the plot of "They Were Five" to the extent that he uses the plot's DNA to craft a much darker "giant Kaiju" film where a group of friend's are driven apart by greed and personal betrayal after a lottery win and the goal of building a tavern, a detail that grounds the film in human character dynamics when set against the fantastical elements of giant monsters attacking Tokyo.

This fact has made me curious enough to watch "Gamera vs Barugon" again though I do wonder if the version currently available on Amazon Prime is the U.S distributor version which has been stripped of all such nuance to focus on the monster action, in line with many of the Japanese films that were re-versioned for the U.S market.

Watch this space for an update..

"They Were Five", 1936, Dir: Julien Duvivier, Criterion Channel

"Gamera vs Barugon", 1966 Dir: Shigeo Tanaka, Amazon Prime

Ravi Swami

25/08/26