A climatic cap to the progression of the French films of the 1930’s, this film is a great mix of realism and action film tendencies from Hollywood. It is full of suspense, thrills, a great shootout at the end, and true crime subplots and intrigue that stem from poverty and social conditions.
You can see how WW2 provides a break in history in a way and kind of restarts a new culture beginning with it and after it. This film capping a historical progression of cinema from its birth until 1939, giving its own climax at the end of the decade as the war takes over, with the masterpieces of these threads of film history that had been developing throughout the decade. Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz are testaments to the pinnacle of the Hollywood Studio system before WW2, untainted by the tragic reality of what that war did to the way society and culture function. Daybreak was a pinnacle of film development to the French Poetic Realists.
There seem to be twp major trends in world cinema at this point, Hollywood and French cinema, with the English producing little bits here and there, the Germans occasionally, and the Soviets occasionally. But in terms of Film language the Americans and the French worked at odds during the 30’s to arrive at the same pinnacle of film history only to have WW2 come smashing in like a wrecking ball and forcing the medium to redefine itself in the wake of the aftermath.
Jean Gabon gives an incredibly suave and hard-hitting performance almost in the manner of Humphrey Bogart. He's a cool man, intelligent, dangerous, but romantic and charming nonetheless.
In a sense this film and French Poetic Realism are precursors to Film Noir in how they combine stylistic gangster/criminal storylines with social realism touching on issues of the day. There's a through line that is essentially an action/criminal plot mixed with a mystery of motivation of the criminals that stems from social realism. Film noir will take up the mantle of poetic realism in making movies that combine these two elements.