Michael Peyser on CHILDREN OF PARADISE

Positioned in this American trailer as the French answer to Gone With the Wind, Marcel Carne's two-part,three hour meditation on the 19th century theater world (paradis is the name for the gallery, the second balcony) was voted Best Film Ever in a poll of Gallic critics and celebrities in 1995. Nonetheless it is not widely‚ known today, despite a sterling restored DVD release from Criterion in 2002. Michael Peyser details the astonishing production history of‚ this fact-based classic shot with much difficulty during the German occupation of France, and‚ which was nearly released as two separate films.

[fanorama]

I saw this once in high school in 1973 or so and never forgot it!

[tadimaggio]

I fell hopelessly in love with "The Children of Paradise" when I first saw it in college (I am 65 now). Its splendors and subtleties are too many even to list, although I think that it's a delightful variation on the old term "an embarrassment of riches" that Maria Casares, who plays the SECOND female lead, went on to become one of France's greatest stage actresses at the Comedie-Francaise (her interpretation of Racine's Phedre in particular was deemed unforgettable by those who saw it). Just what kewpie-doll nonentities most so-called Hollywood "sex symbols" are may be gauged by a good, long look at the immortal Arletty as Garance. For real men, as opposed to arrested adolescents, THIS is what a real woman looks and sounds like (and a real woman, moreover, who was forty-five when she made this film. Contrary to the widespread cliche, youth need NOT be served). Perhaps the ultimate comment on this celestial film was made by a lady sitting in front of me, when I went to see a screening of it at the Pennsylvania State Museum in Harrisburg some years ago. When the lights came up at the end, she and her husband got up, and she turned to him and smiled. "It's been so many years since I last saw it; I'd forgotten how deeply you CARE for all of them." Amen.