I would have wanted to see what Fritz Lang would have given us. As it is, I found it a big yawn.And what is that love music that we hear over and over to the point of nausea? It is not credited on the opening credits..but that same music was heard in Fox's 1954 Irving Berlin epic "There's No Business Like Show Business"...I think it might be called "Remember" ??? Can anyone confirm this and why it was not credited? Why is it so over-used in this film..I can't believe Lang would have done that.Rains is wasted talent here, when he did so many other great roles. Gabin is fine but this role is not a strong enough part, he just looks like a country bumpkin. Give me M.Hulot!! ;-)

An impressive amount of talent was involved in this low budget film: Nunnally Johnson & John O'Hara, screenplay; Salvador Dali, nightmare sequence; Fritz Lang & Archie Mayo, direction; and a cast that included Jean Gabin, Ida Lupino, Thomas Mitchell, Claude Rains, Jerome Cowan, Sen Yung, and Tully Marshall. The end result doesn't quite rise to the level of "masterpiece," but it's far from your typical Hollywood fare. It's got a European feel and sensibility to it, and mature themes, characterizations, and pacing. It's only missteps are in soft pedaling the seamier elements in an attempt to placate the censors. Savvy viewers can read between the lines enough to see that Ms. Lupino's character had worked as a prostitute and that Mr. Mitchell had a homosexual attraction to Jean Gabin. Unfortunately, the ending feels too compromised to be satisfying. I'm guessing that in the original story, it ended in rape and murder. The acting is first rate with Rains and Mitchell cast against type, but it's Gabin and Lupino who really shine. I haven't seen many films by Archie Mayo, but those that I have show him to have been a talented director. His Svengali seems more like it came from UFA than from Hollywood. With a stronger ending and a bigger budget this might well have been one of the greats.

Unlike many Europeans in the entertainment world who were displaced by the Nazis and came to America (such as Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder), Jean Gabin was handicapped as he was a leading man whose English was obviously poor. As for directors, the public would never know and with some other foreign actors, they were able to suppress their accents better. But, with his performance in "Moontide", you can see why the very talented Gabin made very few films during his exile from Nazi-occupied France. His English isn't terrible--but it isn't as good as an actor like, say, Charles Boyer. It's a shame, as his pre- and post-war films are often amazingly good.Bobo (Gabin) is a barge operator who likes to drink and fight--and you see him doing this when the film begins. After waking up from a binge, he rescues a woman, Anna, who is trying to kill herself (Ida Lupino) he takes it upon himself to be responsible for her--which is quite touching. However, the nasty character Tiny (Thomas Mitchell) is always nearby--because he's holding some secret about Bobo--and Bobo has to put up with Tiny--even though there isn't much to like about Tiny. And, when Bobo and Anna marry, Tiny is sure to let his malevolence boil over and tragedy ensues.This film is very much unlike a Hollywood film as far as the plot goes. It bears more similarity to some of Gabin's French-language films like "Port of Shadows" and "La Bête Humaine"--very dark films about madness and murder. So, while it's a bit like an early American example of film noir, it is more like a hybrid of this and the films than helped to make Gabin famous. Dark, brooding, very adult for the time and genuinely odd--this film is worth seeing--especially for its wonderful cinematography.By the way, who came up with the names for the characters in this film?! You've got Bobo, Tiny and Nutsy--an interesting assortment to say the least!Also, on the DVD is a documentary about the making of the film. It talks about the odd circumstances surrounding the film and its star. It turns out that the book on which the movie was based was MUCH more adult and never could have been brought to the screen at that time--though quite a bit of the book still made it to the film but was more implied than explicitly stated. It's well worth seeing.

Here we have the 28 year-old Ida Lupino, looking more like 19 or 20, and already the veteran of more than thirty films, being a frail, charming, and vulnerable waif. She is thoroughly convincing, and we would all like to take her in and look after her. This duty falls to the gruff Jean Gabin, a hard-drinking waterfront drifter from port to port, who has at some point arrived in the States from France. In fact, Gabin in real life had fled the Nazi Occupation and this was one of two American films which he made in exile. The film was supposed to be directed by Fritz Lang, who would have made it a moodier and darker piece. However, he was replaced by the more cheerful Archie Mayo, so we get a film whose real value is not as cinema but as encounter between Lupino and Gabin. That keeps us watching. Claude Rains gives bemused support as a California waterfront bum (hardly his usual type of role!) and Thomas Mitchell is an unctuous, scheming villain who has conned Gabin into thinking he has 'something on him'. The film is rather sinister, and in many ways pointless. If it weren't for Lupino and Gabin being so fascinating, nobody would bother to watch this movie, as it falls between many stools. But Lupino is so entrancing in this role, that presumably no one really cares about the story anyway. And listening to Jean Gabin speak heavily accented English in California is so extraordinary that one wants to watch that too. Who gives a damn about the film, we've got Lupino and Gabin, and that's all that matters. They could read the telephone directory as far as I am concerned, and I would still watch.