sous les toits de paris

Tonight was a good night to stay in and enjoy some classic French deliciousness, namely René Clair’s 1930 film Under the Roofs of Paris.  Featuring an attractively hangdog Albert Préjean as a Paris street singer and the lovely Pola Illery as the moody Romanian object of his affections, the movie still has one foot firmly planted in the tropes of the silent era even as Clair plunges headfirst into use of sound and song.  Clair is also known for his visuals, and here there is a fantastic sequence of the couple walking around the city in the wee hours of the morning, shown sometimes only by their feet on the cobblestone streets.  It doesn't take much more than that to activate my longing to be back on those streets myself.