Chemins sans loi (1947)
Directed by Guillaume Radot

Film Review

There's not much to write home about with this plodding melodrama except to note a gutsy performance from the incomparable Marguerite Moreno.  No one in French cinema ever played the iron-willed matriarch with as much relish, conviction and brazen eccentricity as Moreno, and her presence is the only thing that prevents Chemins sans loi from being completely unbearable.  Ginette Leclerc appears chronically underwhelmed by the whole thing and looks as if she would rather be out doing something useful, like sacking her agent.  There is a distinct lack of flair and imagination in just about every aspect of this production, and if you were wondering why director Guillaume Radot is omitted from virtually every guide to French cinema here is the reason why.  Admittedly the story is dire - just a lazy conflation of dismal, well-trodden clichés - but Radot directs it with the enthusiasm of someone falling asleep during a wake.  Chemins sans loi makes a very effective soporific, but that's just about all it's good for.

Film Synopsis

Inès, a young gypsy girl, is abandoned by her lover, a rich landowner, and must fend for herself when she learns she is pregnant with his child.  She takes refuge at the solitary house of an old woman, who leads a gang of horse rustlers on the French-Spanish border.  The years pass and Inès's daughter Dolores is noticed by the landowner, who has recently married.  Unable to have children of his own, the landowner decides to adopt the little girl...