Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

190 CELLULOID of human weaknesses penetrates too deeply into the sensitive mind of the French bourgeois. I think I am correct in stating that neither Sous les toils de Paris nor he Million received such a rapturous ovation in France as that accorded them in other cities of Europe, England and America. The fact that Clair is unable to resist satirizing the traditions and conventions of his country has more than once brought him into disfavour. I know of no other director in the cinema who can so skilfully employ the technical devices of the medium to ridicule time-honoured customs and the pomp of officialdom. The propaganda of the Soviet films, always crude and too caricaturish to be effective with intelligent minds, is like a sledgehammer when compared with the rapier play of Clair's delicate wit. Nor is he content with making fun of the foibles of everyday life, but in he Million magnificently burlesques Lubitsch's The hove Parade in the scene of Vanda's bedroom with its great hanging draperies and suspended cupid. When Clair had completed The Italian Straw Hat in 1927, Albatross-Sequana retained him on contract for a year, though he directed no further picture during that time. So biting was the undercurrent of satire in that brilliant comedy (still in my opinion his best piece of work), so deeply did the thrusts penetrate into the hearts of French provincial audiences, that Clair was forced to remain idle until the rancour against him had subsided. In the same way, I fancy the true Parisian resented the picture of night-life in Sous les toits de Paris, for although the film was wholeheartedly French in