Jean Renoir’s brooding, palpably anxious 1938 melodrama La Bête Humaine
is a bit of a curveball in the legendary French filmmaker’s canon, but
no less a work of considerable intrigue and import. Adapted from Émile
Zola’s novel, the film, starring Jean Gabin (Pépé le Moko, Touchez Pas Au Grisbi),
is perhaps Renoir’s most roundly populist offering, and remains to this
day a hardboiled and suspenseful journey into the wounded psyche of an
everyday working man.

Part pulpy noir antecedent and part
exercise in grimy realism, the film’s story centers on Lantier (Gabin),
an unbalanced train engineer who, moved to groggy lust, plots with the
married Severine (Simone Simon) to bump off her older husband, Roubaud
(Fernand Ledoux). It gives away nothing to say that Severine’s
motivations are suspect, and so naturally lethal manipulations follow
all manner of mutual sexual exploitation. The commercial success of the
picture — Renoir’s biggest hit — lies somewhat in the sudsy nature of
its material, but also in the filmmaker’s infallible eye for authentic
detail. The story works so well because we feel the well-worn, dog-eared soul of Lantier, his pawned dreams and swallowed class resentment.

Criterion’s superb release features a new, high-definition digital
transfer of the original, uncensored full-screen version of the movie,
which really makes a difference in Curt Courant’s stunning
cinematography, particularly with shadow and in the recesses of the
frame. There are still apparently a few missing or irrevocably damaged
frames here and there, resulting in some occasional hitches, but
otherwise the film looks better than it has any right to, with very
minimal scratching. In a six-minute introduction to the film from some
considerable time after production, Renoir reveals that he hammered out
his adaptation in only a dozen days, and there’s also a new, 11-minute
interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich in which he waxes
philosophic and contextual about both Renoir and La Bête Humaine’s place in his filmography.

Also included is seven minutes of footage from 1957 of Renoir
directing actress Simon in a bit of a fanciful live recreation from the
movie, plus 24 minutes of interviews from a French television program,
with Renoir, Zola scholar Henri Mitterand and others, on the unique
challenges of adapting Zola’s work to the screen. Rounding out the
supplemental material is the film’s theatrical trailer and a gallery of
on-set photographs and theatrical posters that complement a 38-page
insert booklet featuring musings and memories from critic Geoffrey
O’Brien, film historian Ginette Vincendeau and production designer
Eugene Lourié. B+ (Movie) A- (Disc)