In La Belle Équipe, five unemployed workers decide to buy a riverside dance hall together. ARTE will broadcast Julien Duvivier’s film on Monday, November 2, 2026, at 8:55 p.m., in a restored version, starring Jean Gabin and Charles Vanel.
The group pools its money to turn an old suburban washhouse into a party venue. The project becomes their shared venture and their bet on the future. Jean Gabin plays Jeannot, Charles Vanel portrays Charlot, while Viviane Romance plays Gina, whose presence will weigh on the relationships between the friends.
Released in 1936, La Belle Équipe belongs to French cinema of the Popular Front era. Duvivier wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak: the story’s collective starting point, built around shared money and working together, chimes with the social hopes of the period. The broadcast also offers a chance to see Gabin in one of his first major roles, following La Bandera, directed by Duvivier the year before.
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