Gueule d’Amour (Lady Killer)

“Every frame of this exquisite masterpiece is beautifully shot, brimming with movement and life. Jean Gabin is unforgettable in his starring role. The screenplay by Charles Spaak has wonderful dialogues. And Jean Gremillon demonstrates his unsurpassed technical skill and humanity as one of France's greatest directors.”

"Not every rarity is a revelation, but LADY KILLER strikes me as the real deal. . . The chance to savor such grace doesn’t descend too often. Grab it now. "

"[Gremillon's] films are among the most innovative and expressive from a period stretching roughly from the early 1930s through the ’50s — and in many ways they look ahead to the rule breaking of the French New Wave. "

“To come across the films of classic French filmmaker Jean Grémillon is like discovering another country, at once familiar and unaccountably new.”

“Gremillon belongs in the hierarchy of classic French cinema alongside René Clair, Jean Renoir, and Marcel Carné... A dark study of masochistic obsession, mixing glamour and anguish, in which Jean Gabin gives the most affecting performance of his long career.”

“Four Stars. Exquisite and disturbing, GUEULE D'AMOUR is one of the screen’s least seen masterpieces. Gabin, with his soft voice and sensual hesitations, never had a more suitable role, and Balin brings a palpable erotic charge to her femme fatale part.”