Pépé le Moko (French for "Pépé, the Toulon man") is a 1937 French film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Jean Gabin. It depicts an infamous gangster, Pépé le Moko ('Moko' is slang for a man from Toulon) who tries to escape the police by hiding in the casbah of the city of Algiers. The film is based on Henri La Barthe's novel of the same name; La Barthe contributed to the screenplay under the pseudonym "Détective Ashelbé". Pépé le Moko is an example of the 1930s French movement known as poetic realism, which combines gritty realism with occasional flashes of unusual cinematic tricks. The film is often seen as an early precursor of film noir.
The film was remade in America in 1938 as Algiers, starring Hedy Lamarr and Charles Boyer, and again in 1948 as Casbah, a musical starring Tony Martin, Märta Torén, Yvonne de Carlo, and Peter Lorre. English author Graham Greene in a review of the film stated "One of the most exciting and moving films I can remember seeing... Raises the thriller to a poetic level!" According to a BBC documentary, it served as inspiration for Greene's acclaimed novel, The Third Man.
Read more about Pépé Le Moko: Cast