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The abused word " personality " can here be justly employed. Clair is a personality in the cinema world, where lack of personality is at a premium. That is why I expressed in the beginning mv disappointment that he did not bite into a more violent theme. Maybe he is waiting for a more propitious moment.
At all events, I did not believe that he would have presented a film of such astonishing maturity. The unjust criticisms which could be hurled against it would have to remain insensible to the underlying suffering, the expression of which is the artist's privilege.
The third film, called Hallo Berlin, Paris Speaking, by Julien Duvivier, was made in Germany in one version only, with dialogue half in German, half in French, and records the adventures of twotelephone operators who1 fall in love while making Paris-Berlin connections. But another friend takes) the place of the nice young man, and another girl, un peu legere, meets the nice young man when he arrives late, in Paris. In the end, everything adjusts.
Duvivier, however, uses this intrigue to' show once more how a film can be made which can be perfectly understood both by French and German people. And he depicts a Paris such as a foreign tourist would see it, that is to say, almost not at all, in one of the too-speedy cars of Thomas Cook ! And how a German sees it, who does not speak French, and goes for hour-long walks in places which could exist in any town on earth.
Duvivier is a very good film craftsman, and reveals in this film qualities far superior to those evinced by previous works. This time, apart from one or two minor errors of taste, he establishes a comprehension of the sound-film, the value of silence, etc., and in other respects the subject permits a simultaneity in current events of the world — this is well managed. Value is given to the work which bv far surpasses the story of petty intrigue and plot and counterplot.
With the public this film, too', had little acclaim. Meanwhile I am persuaded that Duvivier will make what is called an honourable career ! Important enough in its way ! For the mediocre producer holds always in horror a subject of intelligent worth, and Duvivier, who until now has always directed somewhat vulgar melodramas, will maybe continue tO' make real films.
Paris, January, 1933.
Jean Lenauer.