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Overview
Battement de coeur is a French comedy romance film first released in 1940,
directed by Henri Decoin.
The film stars Danielle Darrieux, Claude Dauphin, André Luguet, Junie Astor and Charles Dechamps.
It has also been released under the title: Beating Heart.
Our overall rating for this film is: good.
Synopsis
Arlette is young and pretty, but she is also poor. On leaving a
reformatory, she finds herself alone in Paris, without money or a place
to stay. But Fate smiles on her and she finds a position at
a special kind of school run by Monsieur Aristide, a school where one
is taught the art of theft. In the course of her duties, Arlette
falls for a handsome ambassador, who is in distress because he believes
his wife is having an affair with another man, an attaché named
Pierre de Rougemont. The ambassador decides to put Arlette’s
larcenous skills to good use, by asking her to steal a watch belonging
to the attaché, a watch which he knows contains a photograph
that will confirm his wife’s infidelity. The plan works, but as
surely as Arlette steals the watch, someone will steal her heart before
the evening is out...
Film Review
Lovers of French cinema who delight in the rich pantheon of supporting
actors that punctuate the industry, like the sprockets on the film
itself, will salivate just by reading the credits to this film: Dora
Doll, Jean Tissier, André Luguet, Julien Carette and the great
Saturnin Fabre. Throw in stars such as Claude Dauphin and
Danielle Darrieux, with the sure hand of Henri Decoin in the director’s
chair, and we surely have another winner from the brilliant
husband-wife director-actress team of Decoin and Darrieux. The wonderful thing about the films being churned out at this time in France is that, although the last thing that matters with teams like this is the story, the writers actually did spend a little time coming up with a decent plot and then honing it until it gleams. Darrieux was still more or less confined to cute ingénue roles, ingénues who constantly seek new ways to get involved in off-the-wall situations, often involving an older man, and this film isn’t all that different. Consequently, how Mlle Darrieux winds up as a pupil at Saturnin Fabre’s School For Lovable Rogues isn’t nearly as important as the magic that unfolds before the camera. Yet another gem from the Decoin-Darrieux stable of excellence. © Leon Nock (London, England) 2010 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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Credits
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If you like this film you may also like the following: À bout de souffle (1960) Allo Berlin? Ici Paris! (1932) Le Baron de l’écluse (1960) Les Belles de nuit (1952) Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1959) Le Fauteuil 47 (1937) La Fête à Henriette (1952) Il est charmant (1932) Julietta (1953) Mam’zelle Nitouche (1954) Le Million (1931) La Romance de Paris (1941) Sous les toits de Paris (1930) La Vie à deux (1958) |


