Port of Shadows (1938)

IMDb plot summary: A military deserter finds love and trouble (and a small dog) in a smoky French port city.
Directed by Marcel Carné. Starring Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, and Pierre Brasseur.

(Spoilers.)

There are pieces of this I appreciate. I found the fog theme to be very atmospheric throughout, both in how it showed up visually and in how it was spoken about. I thought it was intriguing how much of the story focused on the romance with no femme fatale, which is the trope I more commonly see in noir. (Genuinely wondered for a tiny bit if they were going to end up happily together.) I was wildly intrigued by the tiny section of the story where the painter drowns himself -- I wanted to know more about him than any other character in this film. Which comes back to the fact that noir nearly always treads the same familiar ground and, despite a few things standing out, in the end it followed the expected trajectory and left me cold. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think it'll stick with me.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Port of Shadows > I'm Not Rappaport
Port of Shadows < Shall We Dance? (2004)
Port of Shadows < Poltergeist
Port of Shadows < Cabaret
Port of Shadows < Monsters
Port of Shadows > Smokin' Aces
Port of Shadows > Jumanji
Port of Shadows < Lucky Number Slevin
Port of Shadows < The Major and the Minor
Port of Shadows < Kinky Boots the Musical
Port of Shadows < A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Port of Shadows < The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Final spot: #1510 out of 3169.