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Pepe le Moko (French Production; Arthur Mayer and Joseph Burstyn release) arrived in the U. S. following its tail. Produced during the heyday of the French cinema four years ago, it sired a Hollywood duplicate, Algiers, which finally wakened cinemaddicts to further charms of Hedy Lamarr, who, as Hedy Kiesler, had audiences gulping at her nude prancing and purple passion in the foreign-made Ecstasy.

By rights, the film should just be a dated straggler on the U. S. screen. Yet Director Julien Duvivier's camera has caught such an accurate X-ray of a tortured mind, it deserves a gold star on any list. Pepe (Jean Gabin) is a jaunty Parisian jewel thief driven to bay in the Casbah, filthy, crowded native quarter of Algiers. There, like a stallion in a pasture of geldings, he rules the thieves and cutthroats, lives with a devoted but depressing native girl (Line Noro), dreams of the bright life of Paris. The decay of Pepe is vivid because it is told without frills. Newsreel true are the unpretentious, inexpensive sets.

As most U. S. cinemaddicts knew long ago, when a pretty poule (Mireille Balin) visits the Casbah, the whiff of outside air she brings is too strong for Pepe. But Duvivier never lets her intrusion sink his story into another formula triangle. The camera stays on Pepe, watches his mind squirm in its cage.

Having a copy from Hollywood for comparison, serious cinema students will find in Pepe le Moko an excellent example of a prime Hollywood weakness--obeisance to its technical proficiency. With no scenic splendors to distract its attention, the French film studies its character with thought and patience.

The Trial of Mary Dugan (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is a re-make and a prissy fumigation of Bayard Veiller's famed courtroom drama which in 1929 became Norma Shearer's first all-talking picture. Mary Dugan this time is pretty young Laraine Day (of the Doctor Kildare series), whom M. G. M. is building toward the Big Time. And Mary Dugan this time isn't a girl who has become a kept woman to help her brother get educated. She is a virgin stenographer. Many other changes have been made to produce the morality play--which badly drags. Draggingest sequence of all: the serving and eating of a duck dinner.

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