Duvivier's most influential film stars Jean Gabin as a suave Parisian jewel thief who eludes capture by taking refuge in the Casbah-the mysterious, labyrinthine quarter of Algiers that embodies the exotic, and erotic, Arabian nights of our colonialist imagination. For Pépé, the Casbah with all its attractions is also a bitter prison; a gorgeous French tourist (Mireille Balin) lures him to his doom, not with her jewels, or even her sex, but because she reeks of Paris, his love. A classic of romantic fatalism, Pépé le Moko is also a fascinating picture of colonialism as a system of traps and betrayals. Graham Greene rhapsodized, “I cannot remember (a picture) which has succeeded so admirably in raising the thriller to a poetic level,” and French film critic André Bazin observed, “With Gabin . . . death is, after all, at the end of the adventure, implacably awaiting its appointment. The fate of Gabin is precisely to be duped by life.”

Pépé le Moko is repeated on Friday, October 9.