Generally despised by the highbrows and the true connoisseurs of the French cinema ,Jean Stelli made some interesting efforts and it is to these that any review must address itself .
The movie owes a lot to actor extraordinaire Charles Vanel (whose parts in "le salaire de la peur " (=wages of fear) and "les diaboliques are known world -wide); he and Pierre Larquey shine and thoroughly eclipse the bland young lovers and their problem with the girl's papa who wants her to do a money match .
All the action takes place on a building site where two foremen meet again :they should not work together ,because they share a mysterious secret ; although it is revealed late in the movie, the silence between both men is threatening .
The atmosphere of the site and the camaraderie between the workers is well depicted .With good support from his old pal Larquey , Vanel is, by turns, friendly and smiling or somber and angry . He seems to want to help his young colleague ,and even saves his life (but wasn't the hopper wagon incident actually a murder attempt?) ; but his attitude is more and more ambiguous, and,slowly but inexorably ,he sinks into madness ; one may say he overplays in the last scenes of amour fou, but he transcends Stelli's academic direction .
