Anatole France’s oft-adapted short story is a class-oriented bureaucratic nightmare about an elderly pushcart fruit & vegetable peddler pointlessly arrested by an officious gendarme on trumped up charges of obstructing traffic & disrespecting authority when he was simply waiting to get paid by a busy shopkeeper and said something innocuous the policeman misheard as an insult. Unable to understand the court proceedings, Crainquebille lands a ƒ50 fine and two-weeks in jail. He rather enjoys it; the first vacation he’s ever had! But once out, he goes into fast decline, ostracized from the neighborhood he’s spent a lifetime serving. A Zola-esque story from Nobel Prize winner France, it’s beautifully caught in this fine early feature from Jacques Feyder, seamlessly mixing styles not yet named in 1922 (documentary shots of Les Halles Central Market; Neo-Realistic stylings from professional actors; touches of surrealism in dreams & via animated objects) with effective melodrama and ironic satire. Source material in Lobster’s DVD edition somewhat uneven (very fine to acceptable), and Antonio Coppola’s new chamber score isn’t always simpatico with the storyline, but generally, this a wonderful find.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The whole film something of a treasure, but the first two-reels, with documentary elements bumping into Feyder’s atmospheric setup in Paris as early dawn laborers on their way to work cross paths with late night society revelers just heading home, is all but flawless. And well caught by cinematographer Léonce-Henri Burel.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Best known for CARNIVAL IN FLANDERS/’35, Feyder’s sole English-language film, KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR/’37 (Dietrich; Robert Donat; Russian Revolution) is a pip. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/11/knight-without-armor-1937.html
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