Directed by Jean Renoir • 1936 • France
Starring René Lefèvre, Florelle, Jules Berry
An oft-overlooked jewel from Jean Renoir, this exuberant ode to working-class solidarity is both one of the director’s most thoroughly charming works as well as one of his most sly political statements. Channeling the collectivist, utopian spirit of the Popular Front movement, THE CRIME OF MONSIEUR LANGE combines comedy with thriller elements to tell the story of a publishing house where the exploited employees form a collective following the sudden death of their tyrannical boss. When the supposedly dead man unexpectedly returns, a mild-mannered writer of Western serials (René Lefèvre) takes matters into his own hands.
Up Next in Season 1
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Port of Shadows
Directed by Marcel Carné • 1938 • France
Starring Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, Michel SimonDown a foggy, desolate road to the port city of Le Havre travels Jean (Jean Gabin), an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, as acts of...
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Le jour se lève
Directed by Marcel Carné • 1939 • France
Starring Jean Gabin, Jules Berry, ArlettyOne of the defining works of 1930s poetic-realist cinema, the fourth collaboration between director Marcel Carné and screenwriter and poet Jacques Prévert is a gripping story of obsessive sexuality and murder star...
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Zéro de conduite
Directed by Jean Vigo • 1933 • France
Starring Jean Dasté, Gérard de Bédarieux, Louis LefebvreSo effervescent and charming that one can easily forget its importance in film history, Jean Vigo’s enormously influential portrait of prankish boarding-school students is one of cinema’s great acts of...
