Jean Gabin and Bourvil star in this film set during the German occupation. During this time, everyday items were often impossible to get and the black market, though very illegal, was the only way to get things like fresh meat and soap. The two stars of this film spend the evening trying to smuggle four suitcases full of pork through the streets of Paris without the Nazis catching them. Not the noblest of enterprises, I must admit.The reviews for "Four Bags Full" are extremely favorable--and have ratings that mostly fall in the 8 or 9 range. Because of this, my sights were set very high with this film. This, combined with my love of French films, made me think I'd really like this film...but I didn't. I only found it passable and, most importantly, I kept having trouble staying awake as I watched. I guess I just don't see things the way others do when it comes to this movie. I found the plot sluggish and much of Gabin's behaviors through the film just didn't make a lot of sense. I also strongly believe the film played much better long ago...when memories of the occupation and rationing were still quite fresh.

User reviewer jameswtravers ("Bourvil and Gabin at their funniest", jameswtravers from London, England, 18 June 2000) offers background about the negative critical reaction. Bob Taylor ("Hugely entertaining", Bob Taylor from Canada, 13 June 2005) informs us the plot does not resemble the original story.Set in Occupied France during the second World War, Bourvil (Martin) recruits fellow black-marketeer Gabin (Grandgil) to transport a recently butchered pig to a predetermined destination in Paris by carrying two pairs of large suitcases. Much of the killing of the pig is seen on camera. Although the scene is filmed brilliantly, I always downgrade movies that have to resort to showing live animals being slaughtered.When we think of Gabin's monumental filmography, and know in this film we have French Resistance, Black Marketeers, French police and German soldiers/Gestapo men we naturally expect a very gritty journey. (Gabin reminds many people of Spencer Tracy. However, unlike Tracy, Gabin was always very convincing in dangerous, underworld roles. )However, "La traversee de Paris" is not entirely suspenseful. It also has comedic elements and it is allegorical. Gabin's Grandgil is rousing and larger than life, while Brouvil's Martin is duller and timid. Yet, Grandgil is an anti-hero. He unnecessarily creates tensions, particularly with lower class strangers. As compared with Martin's propensity to restore peace (with his wife), and especially with the very likable German interrogator, Grandgil is, well, the only pig in the vicinity.We also find out that this pig Grandgil also has a get-out-of-jail-for-free card. If we begin to associate Grandvil with the French who cooperated with the occupation, his overly rambunctious and demonstrative character seems less mystifying. "La traversee de Paris" upends the universe of post-war French film-goers used to watching films where cooperators are pariahs. This is likely why many film critics were opposed to it on release.The direction and the pacing hold up today. Gabin turns in another great performance of his top-shelf career. It is "off message," but another worthwhile nugget in Gabin's exceptional career.

Marcel Ayme's original story goes this way. Martin and Grandgil hire out to a corrupt wholesaler, Jambier, in wartime Paris. They agree to transport about 200 lbs of pork in four suitcases to a butcher who is waiting to receive this contraband (rationing is in effect, remember). Grandgil through his histrionics, increases the fee to 5,000 francs from the original 900. They encounter some fascinating and corrupt people along the way. Martin kills Grandgil at the latter's studio: he's enraged by the artist's lack of concern for the value of work and the concept of honor. Martin delivers the pork finally and is arrested for murder.Well, you wouldn't recognize the story that Aurenche and Bost created out of this sour little saga. They have given it a happy ending. I am not going to tell you what happens to Gabin and Bourvil, but it is a crowd pleaser. I have stated my reserve about late-period Gabin in the past, but here he is terrific. The rant at Jambier's store is very funny: "Jambier, 45 rue Poliveau, my price is a thousand francs!" Bourvil is a great foil for him; he's more rational and less risk-taking than Gabin, if also less imaginative.

Gabin a great comic? That's not the image that springs to my mind when I think of Gabin, but then neither do I think of Bourvil as a dramatic actor - until I stick 'Le Circle Rouge' in the machine for the nnnth time. Whatever, the two were teamed brilliantly in this post-war nod to the Black Market in Paris during the occupation. The 80 minute running time is just about right for this romp that obliges regular Black Marketeer Bourvil to work with a dep, Gabin, and transport valises stuffed with pork from arondissment to arondissment under the eyes of the Germans. The movie is kick-started via a cameo from all-time great French comic Louis de Funes and it seldom lets up. Although the soundtrack is replete with Parisian underwold slang the thing is so visual that even non French speakers could follow the story in the original, non-subtitled version. The denoument, such as it is, that Gabin is really a celebrity (artist) and is doing the gig for kicks rather than money, is fairly irrelevant, and the last scene, with Bourvil, now a railway porter, toting Gabin's bags is neither here nor there. Even today, half a century after the events, the French are still sensitive to anything apertaining to the Second World War and the French movies that address those feelings, whether sentimental, frivolous, or dramatic, are among the best movies of any country. This is no exception. Five stars in anyone's solar system.