On a superficial level this could be described as Guys and Dolls without the Frank Loesser score and an unhappy ending, Beautiful Salvation Army Girl Saves Sinner's Soul And He Enlists but that approach would do justice to neither.
Very few, if indeed any, actresses did 'goodness/sadness' better than Michele Morgan, blessed as she was, with two of the most expressive eyes in the business and here it is, in a manner of speaking, business as usual as her Salvationist (lieutenant) encounters low-life Rene Lefevre and by her example turns his life around. Given the size of his billing Michel Simon has a relatively small role as captain, appearing only in the second half of the film. He and Morgan had played together memorably in Quai des Brumes the previous year (imdb is incorrect in dating this as 1940, it was actually released in 1939) but then they had been adversaries rather than comrades. Morgan herself doesn't make an appearance until the third reel but that gives us time to see just how wicked Lefevre is for only when we know the depth of his degradation can we measure his ascent. Morgan encounters him when he is affecting blindness and making a decent living out of gullible people and her subsequent treatment of him causes him to initially fall in love with her and then take inspiration from her selflessness. In a nice touch this is a love story with no kisses or caresses and as is often the case Morgan pays the price for being virtuous, expiring from a long-time wasting sickness. Georges Lacombe was a fair journeyman director with the Henri-Georges Clouzot screenplay Les Derniers des six arguably his finest directorial effort with this one not far behind.
Very few, if indeed any, actresses did 'goodness/sadness' better than Michele Morgan, blessed as she was, with two of the most expressive eyes in the business and here it is, in a manner of speaking, business as usual as her Salvationist (lieutenant) encounters low-life Rene Lefevre and by her example turns his life around. Given the size of his billing Michel Simon has a relatively small role as captain, appearing only in the second half of the film. He and Morgan had played together memorably in Quai des Brumes the previous year (imdb is incorrect in dating this as 1940, it was actually released in 1939) but then they had been adversaries rather than comrades. Morgan herself doesn't make an appearance until the third reel but that gives us time to see just how wicked Lefevre is for only when we know the depth of his degradation can we measure his ascent. Morgan encounters him when he is affecting blindness and making a decent living out of gullible people and her subsequent treatment of him causes him to initially fall in love with her and then take inspiration from her selflessness. In a nice touch this is a love story with no kisses or caresses and as is often the case Morgan pays the price for being virtuous, expiring from a long-time wasting sickness. Georges Lacombe was a fair journeyman director with the Henri-Georges Clouzot screenplay Les Derniers des six arguably his finest directorial effort with this one not far behind.