Tourbillon de Paris (1939)
Directed by Henri Diamant-Berger

Film Review

Christmas must have been a pretty grim affair for the French nation in 1939, what with the armies of the Third Reich poised to roll over Europe and force-feed everyone on Knackwurst and Sauerkraut.  For most ordinary people cinema offered the only means of escape from the travails of the time.  It is hard to believe that Tourbillon de Paris brought much succour to many people in France during this tense festive period, however.  A dismal misfire, it takes a threadbare plot without the meanest attempt at characterisation, stuffs in an ungainly assortment of musical numbers, and manages to make a complete hash of the whole thing.  And the person who has most to answer for is its director, Henri Diamant-Berger.

In his youth, Diamant-Berger was one of the most promising French filmmakers of his day, achieving success early in his career with his rollicking episodic masterpiece Les Trois Mousquetaires (1921).  Fame and wealth came to Diamant-Berger too easily and far too early.  By the mid-1930s, he was still actively making films, but with none of the flair or commitment of his early years.  By this time he had given up any pretensions of being an artist and was content merely to churn out tacky crowd-pleasers for the most undiscerning of mainstream audiences.  The popularity of films such as Le Chanteur inconnu (1931) and Arsène Lupin détective (1937) had more to do with the appeal of their star actors than anything Diamant-Berger brought to them.
  
Jacques Becker made far more of the film's basic premise with his early work Rendez-vous de juillet a decade later.  Diamant-Berger's offering is dreary in comparison, his unimaginative direction merely serving to grotesquely over-emphasise the film's other failings - an insipid script and some unbelievably inept acting.  Ray Ventura, the film's producer, comes to its rescue with its ebullient musical numbers, which at least offer some distraction from the histrionic excesses of certain members of the cast.  Only Jean Tissier acquits himself in this cinematic disaster, but even his welcome presence cannot begin to make up for the film's abundant failings.  Marguerite Pierry, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Charpin and Paul Demange are all talented performers but you wouldn't think so from this film.   Tourbillon de Paris may have some value as a last-ditch cure for insomnia, but that's about the extent of its worth.

Film Synopsis

A group of students who are in Paris to sit their exams find themselves desperately in need of ready cash.  They like to perform music for their own amusement, so it suddenly occurs to them that they could take advantage of this shared passion to earn themselves a little money.  All they have to do is to pass themselves off as professional musicians and success is bound to come their way.  Can it really be as easy as that...?