Casque d'Or

I’ve been looking for this for a while, thinking the Renoir-esque setting would make it appropriate to show at the Clark sometime, and the indispensible Criterion Collection has delivered a beautiful print, with worthwhile dvd extras. Jacques Becker’s tale of the Parisian underworld in 1898 is funny, moving, and unpredictable. With ladies of pleasure and gentlemen of crime cavorting in riverside dancehalls, and dives where the wealthy go slumming, the film offers a whirling merry-go-round of classic French characters, led by the “golden-helmeted” Simone Signoret as the saucy, radiant tart with a whim of iron and Serge Reggiani as the ex-con-turned-carpenter with whom the sparks fly, with Claude Dauphin as the double-crossing gang leader. It’s the old story of honor and dishonor among thieves, and the even older story of love at first sight, artfully interwoven in a sprightly yet subtle waltz to the guillotine. (1952, dvd, n.) *8*