User Reviews

Veteran writer-director Jacques de Baroncelli got into films in 1915 and wrote some 21 screenplays and directed 86 movies between then and his death in 1951; most of these were domestic dramas, what Hollywood referred to as 'programmers' and it's ironic that the finest film with which he was associated was Henri Decoin's Bonnes a tuer, on which he received a dialogue credit some three years after his death. Quite a trick if anybody asks you. Rocambole is a sort of poor man's Arsene Lupin and if you've read of or seen on the screen his exploits then nothing here will come as too much of a surprise, in fact, the mixture as before would cover it. Pierre Brasseur, virtually the only name in the cast that means anything at all today is up to snuff as the eponymous hero and it did well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel which turned out to be the last film directed by Baroncelli. Certainly worth a look, especially in the restored version but don't expect too much.