Quartiere latino

"A forgotten French film of the late 1930s which reminds us that not everything that came out of that Golden Age was a masterpiece."

Kinsayder , a genuine connoisseur of the cinéma français , is absolutely right ;this remake of a silent movie of the late twenties is a ponderous comedy ,with students played by actors often over 25, who overplay each one more so than the other ;all the scenes which feature the students are thoroughly unbearable:the plastered concierge sequence takes the biscuit and makes the viewer use the fast forward button.

Lovely Blanchette Brunoy is the only asset of this stodgy brew.Had her scenes with the would be painter more fully exploited, one could have saved her scenes with the artist "who buys his paintings ,then contents himself with putting the finishing touches to his work"; but this comic potential is botched , and ,besides,as Kinsayder points out , Brunoy's co-star ,Bernard Lancret ,is a bland romantic male lead .

As for the actress, you'd better watch Renoir's "la bête humaine" (supporting part) ,released the precedent year ,or Becker's "Goupi Mains Rouges " (1942)(lead ) : those are the real treasures of the golden age of the cinema français.

A wealthy young banker, bored with his lifestyle, visits a café in the Latin Quarter of Paris to mingle with the students from the Sorbonne. He meets a girl and pretends to be a struggling artist so that he can move into a room in the same boarding house.

"Quartier Latin" is a drab romantic comedy, poorly written, lazily directed and badly acted by almost all involved. Bernard Lancret is a particularly charmless romantic lead. Even Jean Tissier, a prolific and generally reliable character actor, is at a loss here (though he appears to be enjoying himself in the scene in which he massages Lancret's naked back). I might have found something more positive to say about this film if it had actually been shot on location in the Latin Quarter instead of on obvious studio sets which capture nothing of the flavour of that district, nor of student life.

A forgotten French film of the late 1930s which reminds us that not everything that came out of that Golden Age was a masterpiece.