The Messenger (French: Le messager, or also known as Messenger Boy) is a 1937 French drama film directed by Raymond Rouleau and starring Gaby Morlay, Jean Gabin and Mona Goya. It was based on a play by Henri Bernstein. Morlay reprised her role while Victor Francen, who had played the male lead on stage, was replaced by Gabin.
It was shot at the Joinville Studios in Paris and the Victorine Studios in Nice. The film's art direction was by Eugène Lourié.
Synopsis
After leaving his socialite wife to marry her secretary, Nick Dange finds his well-connected wife has arranged for him to be made unemployable in Paris. The only work that he is able to get is to manage a mine in Uganda.
He feels lonely and isolated, thousands of miles from his wife. His only companion is a fellow worker named Jack. When Jack returns to Paris after being injured, Nick asks him to take a message to his wife.
Yet she is also lonely and begins an affair with Jack, who has already come to idolize her from the descriptions that Nick had made back in Africa. Yet when Nick returns to Paris and discovers the illicit relationship, Jack commits suicide.
Cast
Gaby Morlay as Marie
Jean Gabin as Nick Dange
Mona Goya as Pierrette
Maurice Escande as Géo
Henri Guisol as Jack
Pierre Alcover as Morel
Ernest Ferny as L'industriel
Betty Rowe as Florence
as Dolly
Jean-Pierre Aumont as Gilbert Rollin
Bernard Blier as Le chauffeur de Nick
Lucien Coëdel as L'agent
as Le notaire
Jean Témerson as Le maître d'hôtel
Robert Vattier as Le représentant
References
Bibliography
Kennedy-Karpat, Colleen. Rogues, Romance, and Exoticism in French Cinema of the 1930s. Fairleigh Dickinson, 2013.