Temptation Harbor (1947) Brit Noir

Directed by Lance Comfort (Hotel Reserve)

Written by Rodney Ackland, Fritz Gottfurcht, and Victor Skutezky. Based on Georges Simenon's novel "Newhaven-Dieppe"

Cinematographer Otto Heller (They Made Me A Fugitive, The Silk Noose, Queen of Spades, The Ladykillers). 

Music by Mischa Spoliansky. 

This is a Brit remake of Henri Decoin's atmospheric French Noir L'Homme de Londres (1943 which by the way should get a restoration for a proper review and comparison). There's a few plot tweeks in the UK version.. Instead of the story taking place on the Dieppe side of the boat train terminal, it takes place on the Newhaven side. Also instead of having a full family, our English counterpart has only a daughter. The French prostitute becomes a carnival mermaid attraction. I'll annotate the small differences between the French and English versions by putting the French plot points in this color

The Newhaven-Dieppe Ferry and the boat trains that served it was the primary cross-channel connection, and also the mail route to Europe. There were dedicated boat trains from London Victoria Station to the quay. 

The film stars Robert Newton (21 Days, Angel Street, Odd Man Out, Oliver Twist, Kiss The Blood Off My hands, Treasure Island, Blackbeard The Pirate) as Bert Mallinson, Simone Simon ( La bête humaine, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Cat People,) as Camelia, William Hartnell (Odd Man Out, Brighton Rock, Hell Drivers, Piccadilly Third Stop) as Jim Brown, Marcel Dalio (Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, Dédée d'Anvers, Catch 22) as Inspector Dupré, Margaret Barton (Brief Encounter) as Betty Mallinson, Edward Rigby as Tatem, Joan Hopkins as Beryl Brown and Kathleen Harrison (Brit Noir vet) as Mabel Slater, and Leslie Dwyer as Reg Slater. 

Story

In this version get a title sequence over a shot of the docks. Moonlight turns the water to liquid silver. The end of this sequence cuts to what at first looks like a carnival but later identified as a Fun Pier at Union Place. We are introduced to Betty Mallinson having fun with her friends with the crowds around the Ferris wheel, carousel, and other concessions.

The French version starts with a torch song and actuallys shows the singer on the dock at one point.

However Betty has to rush home and fix a breakfast for her dad Bert who works the graveyard shift at the Southern Railway signal box for the Newhaven terminal. Betty lights the stove and begins cooking deviled lamb kidneys for father.  

In the French version our main character is named Charles Maloin

(Cooked in a spicy, savory sauce (the "devilling") made with ingredients like Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and cayenne pepper, served on hot buttered toast).

Once she has the pan heated up Betty calls up the stairs to wake her dad.

Margaret Barton as Betty

When she gets an answer she rushes back to attend the frying pan. 

Robert Newton as Bert

When the kidneys are done, she ends up dropping one, on the kitchen floor in transfer to a plate and getting her dress bloody in the process, on the kitchen floor in transfer to a plate. She bends down forks it up, wipes it off, and puts it on Berts plate.

Kids, also reminds me of the opening sequence of Harper, when he retrieves the last coffee filter out of the trash to reuse.

Betty hears a knock on the window. Its her friends wondering if she's coming back to the pier. Meanwhile Bert makes his way into the kitchen and tells Betty to shut the window since its freezing in the house. 

Bert is surprised at the kidneys and asks Betty how she got them. She replies that Mrs Frost left them out on the counter when they closed shop so she brought them home no use letting them spoil. Bert gets slightly sanctimonious. 

Bert: Now look here Betty. Don't you start makin' excuses for something you've done wrong. That never got no-one nowhere. Once you start doin' that, it's the thin end o' the wedge, see? And don't let me catch you out over anything like this again. Is that clear Betty? 

We cut to the Newhaven harbor terminal station and see a steam locomotive pull out of the platforms with one of the ferries tied up alongside the quay. 

We watch Bert walking along the tracks. Then we cut to the signal box, what we call switch Towers in the U.S. sitting high above the tracks. Bert appears and approaches the stairway to the box. 

In the box we meet Reg Slater and his wife Mable. They are also his across the street neighbors. They shoot the breeze about a sports game, and Reg is excited about taking the kids to the pier where Grayson's Fun Fair has set up shop.

Kathleen Harrison as Mabel Slater lt., and Leslie Dwyer as Reg Slater rt.

Reg is excited about seeing the mermaid attraction, showing Bert a handbill of it. After Mable fusses about Berts scarf they leave the box.

Ferry sounds steam whistle on approach to quay

Bert in his perch in the signal box has a good view of the railway terminal and ferry quay. He looks up when he hears a ships horn and sees one of the cross channel ferries approach the quay. He watches it dock and as he does so, we also see a man in a fedora and light trench coat at the railing of the ship, this is Mr. Brown. 

William Hartnell as Jim Brown

He is carrying a valise and appears to be looking for someone down on the quay. When he finds who he has been looking for, that man tosses his head in a direction, indicating that the man in the trench coat should follow him that way towards the stern of the ferry. 

When they are sufficiently away from the crowd at the passenger gangway, Mr. Brown tosses the valise to his accomplice, apparently to by-pass customs. Bert in his switch box is watching all these shenanigans going on from the window. Mr. Brown then rejoins the departing passengers and disembarks off the ferry. Bert wonders to himself. what they smuggled in.

A toss and catch

Once the all the passengers have gone through customs and boarded the boat train the conductor blows his whistle and Bert throws the switches to send it on its way to London. 

In the original French version of the tale, the two smugglers head into the Moulin Rouge Tavern and meet Camelia who is a local prostitute. Mr Browns partner is smitten with Carmelia, and this becomes a plot point in the french version. Also you will notice that the music emanating from the tavern has a carnival-esque sound and this was probably the catalyst for the inclusion of the Fun Fair and the reincarnation of Camelia as the "Atomic" disappearing Mermaid.

In this version Bert again spots the two men, walking along the tracks alongside a goods train, near the edge of the quay. They get into some type of argument and fight, the result being that Mr. Brown knocks the guy with the suitcase still in his hand, off the quay and into the water. He doesn't come up. Mr. Brown runs off.

 

Into the drink

In the French version the character playing the equivalent of Mr. Brown, actually shoots his partner point blank, who then falls into the water. Mr. Brown tosses the gun in the water after him and runs off. Charles Maloin watches the fight and sees the shooting. Manolin goes back into the box and is about to pick up the phone to call the police but decides to stay out of it, imagining all the subpoenas and police questioning inconveniences. Manolin then goes down the stair along the quay and searches the water, not seeing anything he then goes into the Moulin Rouge tavern and meets Carmelia. 

Bert watching all this decides to leave the box and go down to the quay. he jumps into the frigid November waters but cannot find the man, only the floating valise. 

In the French version, it's not until after Manolin leaves the Moulin Rouge does he return to the scene of the fight along the quay and, now fortified with some booze, he doffs his clothes and boots, and dives into the water coming up with the valise, and taking it up to the switchbox.

Soaking wet he climbs back up the stairway to the signal box to call the police but the phone is ringing when he gets there. 

Bert lays the valise on a slanted counter top, and answers the phone. While he's listening the valise slides off the counter on to the floor. The Stationmaster accuses Bert of sleeping, and then hangs up before Bert can offer any explanation. 

Stationmaster

It story's track switches towards Noirsville when Bert beings to shed his wet clothes and hang them by the coal stove to dry out. It's only then that he notices the valise, now sprung opened upon hitting the floor, spilling its contents British pound notes on floorboards. Holy shit!

He's about to call the police but thinking about all that money and then getting pissed off by the stationmaster he decides to contemplate the situation.

He counts up the total, 5,000 quid, about 20,000 USD in 1947. He figures in his head that it would take him 100 years on his salary to make that much money.

Manolin counts over 3,000,000 francs which was a half million USD in 1943. He can't believe it. He puts all the cash back in the valise and stores it in his locker in the signal box

At shift change Bert puts the money back in the valise, and hiding it under his coat he heads for home.

6 AM shift change

 Bert passes a goods train on the tracks and when he passes the end of it he sees the trenchcoat wearing Mr. Brown standing at the edge of the quay looking obviously for the valise.

As he walks out of the railyard, a conflicted Bert decides to take the valise to the police. However, just as he is about to enter the station, a horse cart driver offers him a lift home. He takes it and hide the valise in an under the stair closet. 

Now that he has some money stashed, Bert dips into his savings account, with which he is planning on buying a fishing boat upon retiring, and he lavishes a new dress and coat for Betty, and he also tells her that he will treat her to an afternoon and early evening at the Fun Pier.

However when Bert visited his tobacconist, who BTW, also runs a second hand shop he looks in a mirror and discovers Mr. Brown shopping for a grapple hook. Bert realises that spending lavishly will bring attention to himself.

Betty dressed in her new dress and coat, and Bert have a good time at the Fun Fair.

A blowhole

Simone Simon as Carmelia

Later at the Fun Pier while watching Vanishing Mermaid concession, Bert is chosen from the audience, to put shackles on the arms of Carmelia the "Atomic Vanishing Mermaid, " before she is lifted into the water.

Bert is smitten with her and after the show when he realises that he left his hat on his seat he overhears an argument between Carmelia and the concession owner and his wide, and Bert comes to Carmelia's defence. 

Berts train really pulls into Noirsville when later at a Fun Pier pub Bert runs into Carmelia again, who thinks old Bert has enough money to get her forever out of the mermaid racket. What could go wrong.

 Noirsville 

 

A good little known Brit Noir with excellent acting and cinematography. 7/10

The French version is a bit more atmospheric with lots of fog shrouded shots and heavy downpours. Its plot is also bit more complicated with extra characters, and in L'Homme de Londres, we also find out that the cash was stolen out of a company safe.

Reviews from IMDb

blanche-2 Nov 3, 2021

A real downer starring Robert Newton, Simone Simon, Marcel Dalio, and Margaret Barton.

Newton plays a train signalman, Bert Mallison. One night he witnesses a fight between two men, one of whom is pushed into the water. Mallison goes out to try and save him, but only recovers the man's suitcase. It's loaded with money.

Mallison plans on calling the police, but when his boss yells at him, he changes his mind. He goes home and hides it. He doesn't touch the money, but since it's there, he dips into his savings to buy new clothes for his daughter (Barton) and take her to an amusement park.

At the amusement park, they attend the show The Vanishing Mermaid. She is Camelia (Simone Simon) in a bathing suit who is dunked in water and disappears. When Mallison observes her boss being abusive, he runs in to protect her. Later, he runs into her at the pub. She is very kind to Betty, his daughter, who gives her their address.

Unfortunately, Betty is overheard by Brown (Hartnell), the thief who killed the man and wants the suitcase. He is already suspicious of Mallison - after all, he had a birdseye view of the proceedings and seems to be throwing money around.

A French police officer, Dupre (Marcel Dalio) has come to England to recover the money, which is from a casino heist. So he is putting pressure on a desperate Brown.

The situation becomes complicated when Camelia becomes involved and finds out about the money.

This is a very good film, a real noir, the story of a lonely widower trying to be a single dad who sees two glittering baubles - money and a woman - and fights with his conscience so he can have both. Both mean trouble.

"Temptation harbor" is actually the remake of Henri Decoin's " l'homme de Londres" (1943) one of the twenty or so movies produced by the German La Continentale in the French occupations days.

The American screenplay ,based on Georges Simenon 's book ,has undergone some changes : the hero is a widower whereas in the French movie he had a whole family ; Camelia was a prostitute (with a big heart) whereas she's a "mermaid" at the fair in Lance Comfort's work.

Gone are religion, the colleague in the signal box who mentioned the Bible and the difficulties for man to stay on the straight and narrow.

But the gist of the movie is the same ;both heroes ,with their man-next-door look (Robert Newton is an ideal successor to Fernand Ledoux ) , are haunted by the lure of gain but smitten with remorse ; if religion is absent in Comfort's effort, one attends "a tempest in a skull" a la Victor Hugo : the frames of mind in voice over, and Robert Newton's face reflect an unbearable feeling of guilt.

The character of Camelia was thoroughly rewritten and developed ; one should note that they reverse the countries : the action which took place in France in Simenon 's book and in the first movie is now situated in England: and Camelia is played by French actress Simone Simon who had already two masterpieces under her belt ("Renoir's "la bête humaine" and Tourneur's "cat people") , her character is French although she appears as a stateless person, not really a femme fatale, who dreams of a little home in her native land.

Decoin 's movie focused on the atmosphere; Comfort's effort is more action with a good sense of rhythm and scenes full of contrasts (the opening scene is the fair ,and the hero's daughter and his new love get along very well (not the usual jealous cliché)); the scene in the shack by the sea where only the lighter shows the face is even superior to Decoin's.

Both Decoin's and Comfort's version sufficed ,although Bela Tarr's 3rd adaptation turned it into highbrow stuff in 2008.