Directors: BILLY WILDER, Alexander ESWAY. Screenplay: Billy Wilder, Hans G. Lustig, Max Kolpé. Dialogue: Claude-André Puget. Photography: Paul Cotteret, Maurice Delattre. Film editor: Therese Sautereau. Camera operator: Robert Guilbert. Music composed by Allan Gray and Franz Waxman. Continuity girl: Jacqueline Gys. Sound recording: Jean Bertrand and Behrens. Producer: Georges Bernier. A Compagnie Nouvelle Commerciale Production. Released in France in 1933. 86 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A playboy's father tries to take his son in hand, but the youth refuses to settle down. He leaves home and joins a gang of professional car thieves.
NOTES: Gainsborough bought the rights to this film and brought out an English version, "First Offence", in April, 1936. Produced by Michael Balcon and directed by Herbert Mason, this version starred Lilli Palmer as Jeanette, John Mills as the playboy, Bernard Nedell as the boss, Michael André as the heroine's brother, and H.G. Stoker as the hero's doctor father. Jean Wall, Paul Velsa and Marcel Maupi repeated their roles in order to tie in considerable footage from the original movie. Although the story was credited to Stafford Dickens and the screenplay to Austin Melford, the setting remained in Paris. It's quite obvious from the synopsis that this version should also be credited to Wilder and his collaborators, but I've never seen it listed in any Wilder filmography. Wilder does, however, receive credit in the Michael Balcon book published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1984.
COMMENT: A most interesting and fascinating movie, filmed on a fairly extensive budget on real locations in Paris and Marseille. Not the least of its startling achievements is its amazing use of process screen effects. In fact it soon becomes just about impossible to tell where on-the-spot filming stops and process screening begins. The realistic techniques employed here make similar Hollywood productions look positively amateurish. The bitter-sweet script mixing comedy, romance and drama rates as typical Billy Wilder.
However, one mustn't under-rate Esway's contribution to the direction. As we saw in Barnabé (1938), Esway figures most definitely as a very skillful and stylish metteur en scene. Perhaps he contributed such wonderful Lubitsch-style touches as the sequence in which our heroine refuses several invitations to step into monsieur's automobile. A large wagon passes in front of the camera and when our heroine comes back into sight, there she is seated in the car!
No doubt Esway helped considerably with the actors too. Danielle Darrieux comes across most charmingly as the heroine of the piece, while Raymond Galle shines as the prankish kleptomaniac. Gaby Héritier as a joyful thief, and Michel Duran as the unscrupulous "boss", hand in equally fine performances. Pierre Mingand has a tough time maintaining audience sympathy for the playboy hero who refuses to accept responsibility and willfully embarks on a crime spree. He manages well enough, but seems outclassed by the other players.
Photography and other credits are first-class. Outstanding scenes include the theft of RG5, carried out while the fake cab-driver and his bogus customer create a skillful diversion; the idyllic view of Marseille seen from the back of a truck while a freight train slowly crosses an impressive aqueduct-type bridge; and the climactic raid on the garage. And I suspect Wilder and Esway are two of the young men who take a bow in the rumble seat of the hero's auto right at the very beginning of the movie. That would be a Wilder touch indeed!
SYNOPSIS: A playboy's father tries to take his son in hand, but the youth refuses to settle down. He leaves home and joins a gang of professional car thieves.
NOTES: Gainsborough bought the rights to this film and brought out an English version, "First Offence", in April, 1936. Produced by Michael Balcon and directed by Herbert Mason, this version starred Lilli Palmer as Jeanette, John Mills as the playboy, Bernard Nedell as the boss, Michael André as the heroine's brother, and H.G. Stoker as the hero's doctor father. Jean Wall, Paul Velsa and Marcel Maupi repeated their roles in order to tie in considerable footage from the original movie. Although the story was credited to Stafford Dickens and the screenplay to Austin Melford, the setting remained in Paris. It's quite obvious from the synopsis that this version should also be credited to Wilder and his collaborators, but I've never seen it listed in any Wilder filmography. Wilder does, however, receive credit in the Michael Balcon book published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1984.
COMMENT: A most interesting and fascinating movie, filmed on a fairly extensive budget on real locations in Paris and Marseille. Not the least of its startling achievements is its amazing use of process screen effects. In fact it soon becomes just about impossible to tell where on-the-spot filming stops and process screening begins. The realistic techniques employed here make similar Hollywood productions look positively amateurish. The bitter-sweet script mixing comedy, romance and drama rates as typical Billy Wilder.
However, one mustn't under-rate Esway's contribution to the direction. As we saw in Barnabé (1938), Esway figures most definitely as a very skillful and stylish metteur en scene. Perhaps he contributed such wonderful Lubitsch-style touches as the sequence in which our heroine refuses several invitations to step into monsieur's automobile. A large wagon passes in front of the camera and when our heroine comes back into sight, there she is seated in the car!
No doubt Esway helped considerably with the actors too. Danielle Darrieux comes across most charmingly as the heroine of the piece, while Raymond Galle shines as the prankish kleptomaniac. Gaby Héritier as a joyful thief, and Michel Duran as the unscrupulous "boss", hand in equally fine performances. Pierre Mingand has a tough time maintaining audience sympathy for the playboy hero who refuses to accept responsibility and willfully embarks on a crime spree. He manages well enough, but seems outclassed by the other players.
Photography and other credits are first-class. Outstanding scenes include the theft of RG5, carried out while the fake cab-driver and his bogus customer create a skillful diversion; the idyllic view of Marseille seen from the back of a truck while a freight train slowly crosses an impressive aqueduct-type bridge; and the climactic raid on the garage. And I suspect Wilder and Esway are two of the young men who take a bow in the rumble seat of the hero's auto right at the very beginning of the movie. That would be a Wilder touch indeed!