L'Étoile du Nord is a 1982 French film directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre and based on a novel by Georges Simenon, starring Simone Signoret, Philippe Noiret, Fanny Cottençon and Julie Jézéquel. It won a César Award for Best Adaptation and Best Supporting Actress, and was nominated for Best Actress, Most Promising Actress and Best Editing.

Plot

On a ship in the 1930s sailing from Alexandria to Marseille, Édouard Binet, a French adventurer, meets Nemrod Loktum, a shady Egyptian businessman, and Sylvie Baron, a Belgian exotic dancer. Nemrod takes the Étoile du Nord train to Brussels, on which he is robbed and killed. Édouard then takes a room at the boarding house in Charleroi of Madame Baron, Sylvie's mother, with bloodstained clothes and a lot of money that he hides. Despite the suspicions of her younger daughter Antoinette and the other lodgers, the frosty Madame Baron is gradually charmed by the suave Frenchman and believes his stories. The police learn of his presence and, after trial, he is sent to the infamous Île de Ré for transportation to the penal colonies. Madame Baron is among the grieving relatives who wave goodbye.

Awards