Les Portes de la nuit is an adaptation of Jacques Prévert and Joseph Kosma's ballet Le Rendez-vous. Jean Gabin and Marlene Dietrich were originally intended for the main roles, but they turned them down and the then relatively unknown Yves Montand (as Diego) and Nathalie Nattier (as Malou Sénéchal) took their roles. The film was orignally not a success because too close to very recent memory, although this (Carné's last, and last with Prévert as screenwriter) is now generally recognised as being among Carné's best.
Destiny, or Fate, is personified here by Jean Vilar, who follows people around dressed as a tramp, and, being able to a certain extent 'read' the future but by no means alter it, warns or advises people of what would be best for them, as well he tells them what he sees is in sight for them.
This is 1945, the war continues for a short time but liberated Paris licks its wounds, still having problems with the collaborateurs and the black market. Destiny first meets Diego on the métro, gets off at his stop, and then helps the young Étiennette (Dany Robin) and Riquet (Jean Maxime). Diego has come to announce the death his Résistance partner Raymond (Raymond Bussières) to his wife Claire (Sylvia Bataille), although he's wrong about that as Raymond has excaped and is very much alive. So they go to a café-restaurant to celebrate the reunion and there Diego again meets Destin, who points out his future lover Malou, who's waiting in a car while her detested husband Georges (Pierre Brasseur) has a swift drink.
Also in the café is Malou's brother Guy (Serge Reggiani), whom Diego will later discover is the collabo who denounced him and Raymond. Malou, after telling Georges that she detests him, is already in her original neighbourhood and briefly returns to see her father M. Sénéchal (Saturnin Fabre), who lives in the same appartment block as Raymond, where Diego is spending the night after missing the last métro.
Drawn outside by Raymond and Claire's only son , the boy 'Cri-Cri' (Christian Simon), Diego comes to meet Malou, and they both fall for each other in a big way. However, Guy, after discovering that Diego has rumbled him, tries to get a drunken jilted Georges to kill him, although he succeeds only in Georges killing Malou. Guy walks to his death by an oncoming train, and a defeated Diego takes the métro in despair.
The main ray of hope is in the future, in the young lovers Étiennette and Riquet, who weren't old enough to understand the complexities of occupied France.
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