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Porte des Lilas
1957 Comedy / Drama
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Credits
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Director: René Clair
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Script: Jean Aurel, René Clair, based on a novel by René Fallet
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Photo: Robert Lefebvre, Albert Militon
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Music: Georges Brassens
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Cast: Pierre Brasseur (Juju),
Georges Brassens (L'Artiste),
Henri Vidal (Pierre Barbier),
Dany Carrel (Maria),
Raymond Bussières (Alphonse),
Gabrielle Fontan (Mme Sabatier),
Amédée (Paulo),
Annette Poivre (Nénette),
Alain Bouvette (Le copain de Paulo),
Alice Tissot (La concierge),
Georges Bever (Le pharmacien)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 95 min; B&W
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Aka: Gate of Lilacs; The Gates of Paris
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Summary
A guitar player who calls himself "The Artist" strikes up a friendship with a dim-witted
slob named Juju, who drinks too much and who has taken a fancy to Maria, the daughter
of his pub landlord. To repay a small gesture of friendship, Juju steals several
tins of pâté de foie gras from a grocer’s shop. At the time, the police
are evacuating the area because a notorious armed crook is in the vicinity. When
they learn that the police are carrying out a house to house search, Juju and the artist
throw the tins of pâté out of a window, and, after the search, they go and
retrieve them. Returning to the artist’s shack, they are confronted by crook, Pierre
Barbier. They agree to shelter him, in the cellar. To the artist’s amazement,
Juju goes to extraordinary lengths to help Barbier, even to the extent of giving up Maria
to him...
Review
After the sophistication and scale of René Clair’s grand melodramas of the late
1940s and early 1950s (such as Le Silence est d'or and Les Grandes manoeuvres
), the director returned to his roots in his 1957 film Porte des Lilas, a film
which is immediately evocative of Clair’s early successes, most notably Sous les toits
de Paris. The gloomy sets of the Paris slums, populated by wild ragamuffin children
and drunks, conjure up a universe that is every bit as artificial as that of Le Silence
est d'or, but it provides the perfect tapestry for Clair’s unpretentious comedy thriller,
the nearest that Clair was able to get to making a film noir (then the most popular
genre in French cinema).
Porte des lilas is probably best known for being the only film in which the legendary
popular musician Georges Brassens appeared. Although he plays a lead character,
Brassens has surprisingly little to do in the film, being there mainly to add atmosphere,
with his appropriately melancholic songs. The show stealer is Pierre Brasseur who
appears in probably his best comic role, the naïve drunkard Juju, a character that
invites ridicule and poignancy in equal measure. Henri Vidal, better known for his
straight romantic roles, looks ill at ease in his comic role, which is far less developed
than Brasseur’s. That said, Vidal’s performance is entertaining and his final showdown
with Brasseur is brilliantly executed.
© James Travers 2001
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