“It is a hazard peculiar to cultists in the arts—that is to say, to highbrows—that unless they keep their transatlantic signals open and alert, they tend to canonize foreign talents that are rejected on the home ground as commercial hacks. There was, I remember, a delightful period in the late thirties and early forties when American highbrows yearned for a native naturalistic actor as mighty as Jean Gabin. Their counterparts in Paris were meanwhile lamenting the early demise of Gabin as a 'serious' talent, and panting over Bogart for what the critic of Le Matin called his 'vitalisme, tendre et profond.'”

—Alistaire Cook, “Epitaph for a Tough Guy,” in The Atlantic, May 1957

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