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The title evokes Clair's Paris qui Dort, the lyrical studio suffocation is a virtual blueprint for Carné's Le Jour se Lève. The escape from the penal colony is swiftly stated with hounds and bullets, from a moonlit swamp it moves to la Tombe du Soldat inconnu. The fugitive (Victor McLaglen) is a slain hero in the mind of the estranged daughter (Helen Mack) making ends meet at the Casque d'Or dance hall, "life makes some of us pretty hard." The humble musician (William Bakewell) sees himself as D'Artagnan's descendent, the cunning pimp (Jack La Rue) is part of an underworld gang. (The Mabuse-like hideout lurks behind wine barrels at the bakery, and comes equipped with a vast furnace for dispatching unlucky spies.) Fabricated memories, secret identities, a noble explosion. "All my life I've talked of love, but this is the first time I see it." A largely nocturnal world cogently envisioned by Allan Dwan in just over one hour, evocative arrangements of gaslight and rain and forlorn accordions, tenement windows illuminated like miniature screens with silhouetted figures. A pre-Code view of the Apache demimonde, a light hand on Victor Hugoesque heaviness. (Gags alleviate the fatalism—a domestic row is punctuated by the lout getting bopped on the head with a baguette, heartfelt sentiments are expressed on a barge ride while the couple nibble on a pig-shaped biscuit.) The burning edifice dissolves to a sacramental candle, "always a blessing when a man who's dead mentally dies physically." Ford helps himself to McLaglen plus an image or two for The Informer. With Rita La Roy, Maurice Black, Dot Farley, Lucille La Verne, Paul Porcasi, Gertrude Astor, and Edward Dillon. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |