La Vénus de l'or

This story of a crooked financier may remind you of a news item :the Stavisky affair ; the name of the noble pilot ,who makes the headlines at the end of the movie ,André De Saint-Aguillon ,is probably a tribute to Antoine De Saint-Exupéry ("le petit prince" )

Although it's based on a play , Jean Delannoy succeeds in transforming it into a movie : it's never talky or boring .The screenplay is a spate of clichés: the brother-in-arms killed by a criminal association, the pilot falling in love with a femme fatale, the latter betraying her boss who tries to reveal her reputation to the brave aviator whose cousin, in love with him, gets jealous but tries to snatch him from the clutches of those criminal crooks .....

But there's a tongue-in-chick side and the action knows only one tempo:accelerated ;besides Mireille Balin (her hat becomes her nicely)is ideal as the femme fatale ,nicknamed "la Venus de l'or" (Venus of gold )