Anecdotes

This is Luis Buñuel's only film in the anamorphic widescreen format.

The demonstrating fascists shout "Vive Chiappe," a homage to the chief of the Parisian police who prohibited showing director Luis Buñuel's earlier film L'Âge d'or (1930) after fascists destroyed the cinema where it was being shown.

The protest at the end of the film, is based on a real protest which took place in 1934. The Far-right leagues (Ligues d'extrême droite) were protesting about the removal of Jean Chiappe from his position as Prefect of Police by Édouard Daladier, president of the Conseil (Council), France's governing body.

This film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #117.

Octave Mirbeau's novel had been published in 1905. This version moves the story to a later period of history, after Mirbeau's death - to the France of the between-the-wars period, when fascism was on the rise in Europe and open anti-Semitism was commonplace. The villainous Joseph becomes an outspoken supporter of fascism in this version, and (like his counterpart in the novel) gets away with the murder of a child.