Pluie d'or

Willy Rozier was very active in the 1930s, particularly in 1936, the year in which he released three films. In addition to Maria de la Nuit, a melodrama set partly in Spain, he also made a double film adaptation of the play Veinte Mil Duros, by the Spaniards Leandro Navarro and Adolfo Torrado. A comedy first produced in Spain, with Pedro Barreto, José Baviera, Charito Leonis and Manuel Paris, among others, and soon after in France, where it received the title of Pluie d'or and featured Josseline Gaël (who played Cosette in Raymond Bernard's Les Miserables), Jean Weber (Le Shpountz, by Marcel. Pagnol, with Fernandel), Dorville, Marfa d'Hervilly (Café de Paris, by Yves Mirande), Paul Demange (Les Enfants du Paradis by Marcel Carné, Macadam by Jacques Feyder, Le Crime by Monsieur Lange and Elena et les Hommes, by Jean Renoir, Monsieur Le Souris, by Georges Lacombe, with Raimu, the short film L'école de Facteurs, by Jacques Tati and also Café de Paris by Yves Mirande) and Marcelle Praince (Sous le Ciel de Paris, by Julien Duvivier). A stellar cast, for a play that, unfortunately, is neither particularly funny, nor is the adaptation exemplary. Lots of rhythm (perhaps influenced by the American style), for little plot.

Versatile as ever, Rozier even rehearses a musical in this adaptation, introducing three songs, with his own lyrics and music by Jacques Belasco, under the musical direction of Fernand Audier.

Ambitious, as ever, but not especially achieved or memorable, despite the remarkable means involved.

Dorville runs a shoe store. He takes in three gamines, who grow up working for him. He's gruff but loving. Meanwhile, his in-laws keep pestering him for money; one of them throws him downstairs. He staggers back to the store and reveals to the three, who have grown up, that his money comes from fencing. He tells them they shall have the money. But the in-laws want it too, so they spy on the three, who have to go to great lengths to enjoy it.

Willy Rozier directs this script as a crazy comedy, running everything at high speed to make it amusing. He's not very successful. He was, in the modern sense, an auteur, writing , producing, and directing his own movies. None of the ones I've seen are particularly good, even though he turned out dozens of them from 1934 through 1976, in all sorts of genres. He died in 1983 at the age of 81.

The title (= gold rain) may suggest another movie which reflects the Front Populaire zeitgeist ; it was 1936 after all ;unfortunately , it is not " la belle équipe" or "le crime de Monsieur Lange" ;it is a heavy-handed farce,badly written , poorly acted.

A shoe-store owner takes in three orphans ;ten years later ,when he dies , he bequeaths his fortune to the children at his family's expense. The latter does not agree and keep a watch on the usupers who spend their life in luxury places while working as shop assistants among the shoes....

In a half-a -century career , Willy Rozier never produced a memorable work.