French film photo galley for 1930s All genres

French films 1930s All genres

À propos de Nice (1930)

Limited financial resources more or less compelled Jean Vigo to begin his film-making career with this short documentary film. A propos de Nice is not Vigo’s most ambitious work but it is striking how much of his own personality and view of life emerges from this short but hugely impressive work. Assisted by a very gifted camera operator... [More...]

L'Âge d'or (1930)

After their first collaboration on Un chien andalou, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali attempted to make an equally daring film in which surrealism and anti-bourgeois sentiment are combined to shocking effect. However, appalled by Buñuel’s anti-religious ideas, Dali abandoned the project at an early stage and Buñuel went on to make his first solo film... [More...]

Le Sang d'un poète (1930)

This is Jean Cocteau’s first full-length film and his most abstract, showing a strong influence from Dali and Bunuel. His intention was to explore the inner self of a poet, to portray the torment of a soul torn between the search for artistic fulfilment and the pressures and artifices of an external reality. Despite the primitiveness of the film making... [More...]

Prix de beauté (1930)

Prix de beauté was one of the last silent masterpieces, directed by Augusto Genina and scripted by René Clair (himself a great director). Released at a time when sound films were becoming the norm, this film was largely overlooked and has only comparatively recently received the attention it deserves. The film stars Louise Brooks in the role of the eponymous tragic femme fatale... [More...]

Sous les toits de Paris (1930)

In common with many of his contemporaries of the late 1920s, director René Clair was apprehensive over the transition from silent to sound cinema, and this is apparent in his first sound film, Sous les toit de Paris. Although the film has a number of scenes with recorded dialogue, it is essentially a silent film to which sound elements have been added in a rather tentative and somewhat... [More...]

À nous la liberté (1931)

René Clair’s musical farce À nous la liberté was one of the early triumphs of sound cinema and has retained its status as one of the all-time greats of French cinema. The famous production line scenes were the inspiration for Chaplin’s masterpiece, Modern Times and the film contains many equally memorable sequences which doubtless influenced a generation of... [More...]

La Chienne (1931)

Having failed to make much of a mark in cinema’s silent era, Jean Renoir made the transition to sound films which much greater success than many of his contemporaries. La Chienne, whilst not an exceptional film in its own right, is significant in that it marks the turning point in Renoir’s career. The experience and public awareness that Renoir gained through this film would enable... [More...]

Le Million (1931)

Rated as René Clair’s comic masterpiece, the original template for the Hollywood musicals, and one of the best of the early sound films, Le Million is by any account an astonishing piece of cinema that lives up to its reputation. Even seventy years on, the film is bursting with energy and freshness and has a great deal to entertain a modern cinema audience... [More...]

Marius (1931)

Mariusis the first film in arguably the most well known and best trilogy in cinema history (followed by Fanny and César). All three films were written and produced by Marcel Pagnol, one of France’s most celebrated playwrights of the Twentieth Century. Although Pagnol officially directly only the third film in the series... [More...]

On purge bébé (1931)

Jean Renoir’s most outrageous comedy, based on a stage play by Georges Feydeau, provides ample material for its comic stars to prove their worth. Marguerite Pierry, Jacques Louvigny and Michel Simon each provide a comic performance that surpasses genius, whilst a then comparatively unknown actor Fernandel unleashes his talent on an unsuspecting world... [More...]

Boudu sauvé des eaux (1932)

Boudu sauvé des eaux is amongst Renoir’s most human and certainly funniest films. It is a warm-hearted satire on the hypocrisies of bourgeois family life, covering some of the ground which Renoir later tackles more directly in his later film, La Règle du Jeu. Renoir uses Boudu as a kind of torch light to show up the self-righteousness and shallowness of supposedly good... [More...]

Coeur de lilas (1932)

Coeur de lilas is an impressive early example of the French policier and was based on a stage-play by Bernard and Hirsch. It is one of the earliest films to be directed by the Russian émigré Anatole Litvak who later went on to make a successful career as a film director in the United States. The film cost $120... [More...]

Fanny (1932)

The second film in Pagnol’s celebrated Marius-Fanny-César trilogy follows on directly from the first film. Now it is the turn of Orane Demazis to take centre-stage in an emotionally charged and moving portrayal of a pregnant woman who has to choose between fidelity to the man she loves and the obligations of social propriety... [More...]

L'Atlantide (1932)

Although considerably less polished and memorable than some of Pabst’s other works, L’Atlantide is a compelling film with a strong visual style throughout. The film is a remake of Jacques Feyder’s 1921 adaptation of Pierre Benoît’s novel, with some striking differences, particularly in the portrayal of the queen Antinea... [More...]

La Nuit du carrefour (1932)

Jean Renoir is not normally associated with the crime thriller genre, but in La Nuit du carrefour he manages to turn out a more than satisfactory adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel. Whilst it is apparent that the director is still experimenting with his technique, he shows a surprising maturity and in this film he appears to be defining the ground rules for what would become one of the... [More...]

Les Croix de bois (1932)

Les Croix de bois is one of the most harrowing and most realistic war films to have been made in France, and bears a favourable comparison with Lewis Milestone’s legendary American equivalent, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Based on a well-known novel by Roland Dorgelès (first published in 1919), the film shows the horror of the Great War through the eyes of an ordinary... [More...]

Poil de carotte (1932)

Drawing heavily on the poignant novel by Jules Renard on which it is based, Poil de carotte is a modest yet appealing film which has stood the test of time mainly because of the quality of its acting performances and its inherent humanity. It is more memorable than Julien Duvivier’s earlier silent version of 1925... [More...]

Cette vieille canaille (1933)

Cette vieille canaille was one of half a dozen films that Russian director Anatole Litvak made in France before taking up residence in the United States, where he directed several Hollywood classics including Anastasia (1956). Litvak’s 1930s European films are striking in their sombre cinematographic style which uses light and shade to create mood and tension... [More...]

Dans les rues (1933)

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... [More...]

Le Coq du régiment (1933)

Comic giant of French cinema Fernandel stars in this typical 1930s French farce, a conventional piece of vaudeville intended purely to entertain the masses. Although both the plot and production values are pretty simplistic, if not to say absolutely shoddy, by today’s standards, this kind of lowbrow comedy was enormously popular in its day... [More...]

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