Des gens sans importance aka People of No Importance 1956 - Truck Driving / Road Trip / Drama Noir

Directed by Henri Verneuil (Le clan des Siciliens, Mélodie en sous-sol) 

Written by Henri Verneuil & François Boyer with additional dialogue by François Boyer. Based on a novel by Serge Groussard.

Cinematography by Louis Page. Music composed by Joseph Kosma

Jean Gabin (probably the most Film Noir of any actor) as Jean Viard, lorry driver, and lover of Clo, Françoise Arnoul as Clotilde Brachet, called Clo, waitress, Pierre Mondy (Souvenirs perdus, Compartiment tueurs, Requiem pour un caid)  as Pierrot Berty, Jean's co-driver, Paul Frankeur as Émile Barchandeau, owner of La Caravane, Yvette Etiévant as Solange Viard, Jean's wife, Dany Carrel as Jacqueline Viard, Jean's teenage daughter, and Lila Kedrova as Madame Vacopoulos, brothel hotel manager.

Story

Story

A gale force wind is howling, it's blowing up in small dust squalls. Our view is of Barchandeau's L'hotel de Caravan.  A lonely looking two story truck stop selling Azur Gas, with a restaurant and rooms. It sits on the side of a two lane highway on a windswept plain. Utility poles flanking the road stretch to infinity. Two Trucks are parked on the shoulder beyond the pumps. Dogs are barking, a woman is up wind of the gravel lot, hanging her wash.

We see a '55 Buick Roadmaster get larger as it rolls down the highway and pull up to one of the pumps. The horn honks. The woman hanging laundry, yells out that she is coming. 

Another truck pulls up on our side of the highway and as it braked its trailer blocks off the scene. 

The title sequence with sad strings accompaniment starts, and the dissolving blank side of the truck trailer transitions, morphing into pages, upon which the credits are printed and are being flipped through. 

When done we are back to the truck and we see truck driver Jean Viard open the passenger side door and drop to the ground. He walks across the highway, past the pumps and into the Barchandeau's Beanery. 

Jean Gabin as Jean Viard

Outside we see through a window, the Roadmaster's diver, He's a US GI. He's out of the car, schmoozing Emile Barchandeau's latest waitress. 

The GI is successful, and the waitress, must like what she sees. She ditches her apron in a radiator water pitcher, and hops in the Buick which peels out headed for big town Bordeaux. 

Cut to Jean is seated and having a cup of joe at a table. By the window another customer watching the GI and waitress by the pumps. He chuckles and alerts Emile that he just lost another waitress. 

Jean gulps down his coffee gets up, walks over to Emile, who is frantically calling the police about his run off waitress, and the money from the gas she put in the GI's Roadmaster. 

Jean asks Emile in passing to wake him in an hour and a half, and then he heads upstairs to crash. It's obviously somewhat of a routine occurrence with Jean and Emile..

As he lays sprawled out in his coveralls on the bed he tells us in V.O. that Emile has had no luck with his maids / waitresses, and begins to reminisce about the various Marie's that Emile has had working for him. No matter what their real names where, they were all Maire to the truckers.

They just added a nickname Marie "Not Me", "Damn" Marie,  until he mentions Cloe and then we go into a flashback.

Flashback

Jean [V.O.]: We always called them Marie because it was easy to remember. Except Clo. [takes a drag on his cig]. Perhaps because she wasn't like the others. Its been a good two years since this story took place.

Night. A highway with moving traffic.

Jean [V.O.]: It was Christmas Eve, we had just drove through Bordeaux, Berty and I had been driving for 60 hours straight.  

We cut to a cab view with Jean driving and Berty catching a few winks laying on a bunk just behind the seats. They are hauling goods in a 1953 Willème LC 610 TC tractor trailer for O.G.T. (Office Général des Transports). Even with both taking cat naps in shifts they are having a hard time staying awake. 

Jean is reading the billboard he passes to stay awake. 

Berty wakes up, drops down to the passenger seat and then opens the passenger side door. He stands on the running board and takes a wiz. When done he asks Jean if he wants a break. 

We fade into another cab view where Jean is sleeping up in the bunk while Berty is driving. 

He misses a truck route type of sign in some small town and drives down a street that has a sharp right angle turn and he has to hit the hooks squealing to a stop almost crashing through a Modern Furnishings store display window. 

Pierre Mondy as Berty

Ironically it's a Christmas bed window display with Christmas tree off to the side. 

The shops owner come out on a second story balcony and chastises them for being drunk. Berty gives him the "up your ass' sign and Berty and Jean back the semi out of the street to the turn they missed. 

The shops owner come out on a second story balcony and chastises them for being drunk. Berty gives him the "up your ass' sign and Berty and Jean back the semi out of the street. 

Jean is driving now, midnight mass church bells are ringing. They both need some sleep. 

When they finally make it to Barchandeau's they pull over to take advantage of Emile's upstairs bedrooms. Jean Pulls up near the pumps and shuts off the truck.  . 

Jean gets out and pops the hood on the Willème and checks the radiator.

He is surprised by the truck stop waitress, a new one, a brunette, named Clo, who appears carrying a water pitcher mentioning she has some cold water. Jean replies that warm water is better. (He's right, FYI cold water in a hot radiator, can crack your engine block). 

Françoise Arnoul as Clotilde "Clo" Brachet

Hearing the waitress talk is enough to wake Berty up. He hops down from the cab and they walk into Emile's. 

Emile's got the place decorated with a Christmas tree, with old style trimmings,  and lit candles on the branches. Emil orders Clo to bring them their good Christmas dinner leftovers, duck, bread, and sparkling wine. 

He's happy to have old customers on Christmas Eve. He begins to relate the story of the Christmas Eve he lost his leg driving a truck hauling gasolene with a motor that caught fire.  He drove the load out of town and saving the church with a mid-night mass crowd. When Emile looks over the table, both Jean and Berty are asleep in their seats.

Paul Frankeur as Émile Barchandeau

Emil wakes them up and they follow Clo up the stairs to their rooms. Jean requests Clo to wake them up in an hour and a half. berty signals two hours to Clo who continues up the her quarters in the attic. 

Jean requests Clo to wake them up in an hour and a half. Berty signals two hours to Clo with his fingers who continues up the her quarters in the attic. 

Berty walks into his room and flops on the bed and is out, Jean likewise. 

However Clo comes back down stairs to bring Jean an alarm clock. 

However Clo comes back down stairs to bring Jean an alarm clock. She wakes him up to give him the clock so she doesn't have to wake up. Jean, half asleep, still has energy to flirt with Clo.

Jean: Was that all you wanted?

Clo: Why? Are you expecting something else?

Jean: You never know Santa Clause might come.

Clo: Hang your stocking by the chimney.

Jean: Sure but, you wont fit in my stocking....

They talk. Clo sits on the bed. It collapses at one corner. They laugh.

Jean can't believe that she's not out dancing on Christmas Eve. She tells him her mother remarried and lives in Boudreaux she has no family nearby. We see Clo notice that Jean is wearing a wedding ring. 

Cut to early the following morning we see the O.G.T. truck in Paris, pulling into a garage alongside a quay branching off the Seine. 

The dispatcher complains, as usual, about their time. Jean signs his paperwork, and takes off for home. Berty tells Jean he'll handle the rest. The dispatcher pulls out a trip long from the "controlograph." 

The dispatcher checks the roll and asks Berty what's the two hour break for. Rest, replies Berty or it would have been an eternal rest. 

Berty too tired to trek all the way home decides to sleep in the warm cab. He explains to the dispatcher that he lives way at the opposite end of Paris and since he's not married he can sleep whenever he wants too. 

We cut to a Ville de Paris garbage truck in a 20th arrondissement neighborhood. The sanitation men are dumping ash cans into the trucks hopper on Rue des Orteaux. 

As it pulls away it travels under a Petite Ceinture railroad overpass while a steam locomotive crosses above. Walking under the same overpass is Jean. 

We follow him to his apartment flop house. Home. The concierge calls out to Jean explaining that she has something for him. Jean complains that he just wants to sleep. 

Its a Santa Claus suit and a Santa mask. She explains that his wife left the kids presents out in the hall for him to bring in when he got home. Too late for that. 

When he gets up to his floor, there are no presents out in the hall. When he goes into his flat his wife Solange starts complaining right off the bat, that he was supposed to be in last night. The kids already got their presents. 

Jean explains that when they got to Bordeaux, they had another load waiting for then to haul, before coming back to Paris. 

More bickering. Jean is grabbing some bread, butter, and cheese for a breakfast sandwich. Out of a window, he spots his eldest, daughter Jacqueline, just coming home from a Christmas Eve party. 

He watches as her escort tries to kiss her, she pushes him away. 

When she arrives up at the apartment there is more arguing, about her being out all night. We also find out that Jacqueline is aspiring to be a model. We see an art-y / fashion-y pinup array on a wall by a mirror.

Dany Carrel as Jacqueline Viard

This typical family style bickering wakes up Jean's youngest boy. He walks out into the kitchen, sees the Santa costume Jean brought upstairs, and declares "So Santa isn't real either!," and goes back into his bedroom. 

Jean, exaggeratedly pissed off about his youngest having lost his belief in Pere Noel, goes grumbling into the bedroom and as he gets ready to turn in we fade to black.

The next sequence details another stop at Barchandeau's La Caravane, here we get, what could just be the the first shot of a Foosball Game on film. 

Clo, asks Jean if she could catch a ride to Bordeaux with him and Berty. She tells him that she's found a job in Bordeaux.

Clo, asks Jean if she could catch a ride to Bordeaux with him and Berty. She tells him that she's found a job in Bordeaux. 

We get some nice sequences of the grittier side of Bordeaux, before the truck stops in a street and lets Clo off to visit her mother. 

Now our tale follows Clo. We watch her travel down a cobblestone street off the riverside wharves' to a magic shop. 

The Tricky Devil selling all your party trick needs. She tries the door its locked. She knocks no answer but a woman's voice from an upstairs flat yells down to Clo, telling her that her mother is at the park listening to a concert where her stepfather is playing. 

When she gets to the park, her mother gives her the cold shoulder. Clo asks if she could stay with them just a few days until she finds a job. Her mother blows her off with the excuse she has really no room.

So Clo beats it back to the wharf where Jean and Berty left her off to look for their O.G.T. truck and see if she could catch a ride with them back to Barchandeau's. 

Clo finds Jean shaving with a twenty-four volt electric razor, that he's running off white cord coming out of the cab window. It's probably in something like a cigarette lighter plug. Jean's dot a small mirror leaning on the trucks fender. We get a nice shot when Clo suddenly appears in his mirror. 

She asks if she could ride with them back to Barchandeau's. Jean says sure, and so they all ride and talk a good part into the night. 

They eventually come up behind another truck that's wandering back and forth. The driver's falling asleep.

The driver's falling asleep. Jean finally pulls up alongside and gets the attention of the driver who brakes. Jean yells through his window that he's falling asleep, he then has Berty ride with him to keep him awake. Berty tells Jean that he'll meet him at Barchandeau's. 

That leaves Clo and Jean in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. Clo slips off her shoes puts both her legs up on the bench seat and cuddles up next to Jean.

Jean: You don't mind staying alone with me? Do you? it doesn't matter in any case. I could be your father.

Clo: I hadn't noticed. 

Jean: It's true though.

Jean reaches for the key and starts the motor, he looks at Clo who is starring at him. Jean shuts the motor off again.

Jean: Why are you starring at me?

Clo: If it annoys you I could turn around. You're of the shy and withdrawn kind. 

Jean: And you're not, we average out.

Clo: Are you married?

Jean: Yes

Clo: What's your wife like? 

Jean: You're awfully curious. She's like a lot of women, with three kids on top of that. We should get going or Berty will start imagining things. 

Jean reaches for the key. 

Clo: What things? Can't we take a ten minute vacation.

Clo's sweet invitation. 

Jean: Vacation. You make a lot of sense.

Clo: You're making some progress. You're starring at me too. Why?

Jean: You're not unpleasant to look at.

Jean reaches over they embrace, he switches the cab light off, and we fade to black. What could go wrong????

Noirsville

Henri Verneuil, writers Verneuil & François Boyer along with cinematographer Louis Page and composer Joseph Kosma created a great Noir tragedy about a crazy love that's doomed. All the actors Gabin, Mondy, and new to me Françoise Arnoul are excellent. I'll look for her in other Noir if there are any. The sets, the lighting, along with the great outdoor location work, i.e., on the road, the truck stop, and both industrial Bordeaux and Paris all set the mood to Noir. 8/10

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