Yves Allégret's best works were made in the early fifties.he was then in top form ,abetted by brilliant script writer Jacques Sigurd and excellent thespians such as Simone Signoret(his then-wife),Bernard Blier,Gérard Philipe,Jeanne Marken ,Madeleine Robinson and many more.His four best works were certainly "Dédée d'Anvers" "les Orgueilleux" and his two masterpieces,film noir at its most desperate the bleak "une si jolie petite Plage" and the nasty "manèges".

After 1953,the slump began."La Fille de Hambourg" was based on a Benazeraf idea and that man became one of the tycoons of porno movies in the sixties/seventies:the hookers in the window was thus a true omen of his future.Even Frederic Dard who contributed cannot save the story.Its construction is appalling ,beginning with three minutes in a prisoners camp to make us comprehend that Gélin met Knef during WW2:she was giving him cigarettes to sweeten his plight.Then Gelin comes back fifteen years later or so and with two pals,finds her back in the mud where she fights in a shady club (and I mean fight :the guests are asked to clean the girls after the competition).The rest is so trite it's not worth any mention.

Take any of the four movies I mention above.