Dans les rues
1933 Crime / Drama
Credits
|
Summary
Jacques is the wayward son of a poor war widow. Unable to find
work, he falls in with a gang of delinquents who terrorise householders
and shopkeepers in their neighbourhood. Despite his rebellious
nature and the fact that he fails to get on with his more disciplined
older brother, Jacques remains the apple of his mother’s eye. But
Jacques seems destined for a life of crime and penury amidst the
lowlife of Paris. Even the love of Rosalie, the daughter of the
local junk dealer, cannot save him...
Review
With its starkly realist portrayal of juvenile delinquency and
deprivation between the wars, Dans
les rues is a poignant social drama which bears some similarity
with William A. Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road, released
the same year. What is immediately striking about this film is
its trenchant realism, achieved
through the use of natural locations and various inserts depicting
everyday life as lived by most ordinary Parisians in the early 1930s,
making this an invaluable visual record of the period. The film
presages the poetic realist style that would have a significant impact
on French cinema in the mid to late 1930s, and even has some thematic
and textual elements of what we would now term film noir.The film was directed by Victor Trivas, a Russian émigré who began his filmmaking career in Germany. He hastily moved to France after his provocative anti-war film Niemandsland (1931) was banned by the Nazis. Dans les rues was one of two films Trivas made in France – the other being Tovarich (1935). He would subsequently find work in Hollywood, contributing to screenplays for such films as Orson Welles’ The Stranger (1946) and Otto Preminger’s Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950). Another significant name on the list of credits is Rudolph Maté, the legendary cinematographer who had previously distinguished himself on Carl Theodor Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928) and Vampyr (1932). © James Travers 2009 Write a review for this film... User Comments
How do you rate this film?
|
 More French Drama |
HOTELS | FLIGHTS | HOLIDAYS | PROPERTY | JOBS
| Translate this page: |
 
|
© filmsdefrance.com 2009