I probably enjoyed this soufflé a little more than my good friend who, as a Frenchman living in France, can afford to be a tad blase and reserve his praise for the really outstanding French movies that he can find virtually nightly on French television. Alas, as a poor Englishman besotted with French cinema but without the instant access my friend enjoys I've learned to be content with crumbs from the rich man's table. Here, a full twenty- five years before Godard, Jean-Paul Paulin takes his camera onto the boulevards and no one turns a hair (not even the hair in the gate). Maybe there were less pseuds around in those days. Florelle was an actress little known in England despite a fairly respectable CV - she played the female lead in Le Crime de Monsieur Lange for example - and although she has little to do here except look cute she does it adequately and even throws in a song for good measure. For me the DVD is invaluable for the extras in which people in the 'business' reminisce about the great cinemas du quartier that once blossomed throughout Paris.
