Le quai des brumes 1938

Frank S. Nugent, New York Times: It's a thorough-going study in blacks and grays, without a free laugh in it; but it is also a remarkably beautiful motion picture from the purely pictorial standpoint and a strangely haunting drama. Read more

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: The first and probably least of the collaborations between screenwriter Jacques Prevert and director Marcel Carne. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Because it is so uncompromising, so pure, "Port of Shadow's" particularly French brand of romantic fatalism still knocks us out decades after the fact. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Essentially, this is film noir, so there's crime and romance, but both are submerged beneath a resolutely ground-level exploration of lives in crisis -- a mood bolstered by shots of the down-and-dirty French port groaning into action. Read more

Eric Hynes, Time Out: From Gabin's fatigued magnetism to cinematographer Eugen Schufftan's woodcut-worthy attention to texture, this is movie melancholia of the very highest order. Read more

Otis Ferguson, The New Republic: As a film that neither attempts more than it can do nor is satisfied with the trivial, Port of Shadows is a pleasure. Read more