Gervaise

Set in mid-nineteenth-century Paris, Gervaise follows a laundress raising two children alone after her partner Lantier leaves her. She finds happiness again with Coupeau, a roofer, but a fall from a roof leaves him unable to work and dependent on drink. As his decline continues, Gervaise struggles to keep the household afloat and to hold on to the laundry business she has worked to establish. Lantier's reappearance complicates matters further, and the friendship and support of the metalworker Goujet offers her another kind of attachment. The story is drawn from Émile Zola's novel L'Assommoir.

The film was directed by René Clément, its screenplay written by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, and it was produced by Agnès Delahaie. Maria Schell plays Gervaise, with François Périer as Coupeau, Armand Mestral as Lantier, Suzy Delair as her rival Virginie, Jany Holt as Coupeau's sister Mme Lorilleux and Mathilde Casadesus as the concierge Mme Boche. It followed Clément's Forbidden Games and Monsieur Ripois, and preceded Purple Noon, Joy House, Is Paris Burning? and Rider on the Rain.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.4 from around 1,800 votes, while on TMDB it holds 6.7 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 7.5 from five reviews places it slightly above the audience score on IMDb and clearly above the TMDB figure.