Au bonheur des dames (1930)

Director:

Julien Duvivier

Writers:

Noël Renard (adaptation)
Émile Zola (novel)

Release Date:

3 July 1930 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Denise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle's store. But the glamorous department store 'Aux Bonheur des Dames' across the street crunches all the little businesses around. She finds a position there. |

Plot Keywords:

Department Store | Progress | Model | Based On Novel

Cast

Dita Parlo	...	Denise Baudu
Ginette Maddie	...	Clara
Andrée Brabant
Madame Barsac	...	Madame Aurélie
Nadia Sibirskaïa	...	Geneviève Baudu
Germaine Rouer	...	Madame Desforges
Simone Bourday
Cognet
Colette Dubois
Récopé
Yvonne Taponié
Marthe Barbara-Val		(as Barbara Val)
Marcelle Adam
Pierre de Guingand	...	Octave Mouret
Fabien Haziza	...	Colomban

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

France

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

Galleries Lafayette, Boulevard Haussmann, Paris 9, Paris, France

Company:

Le Film d'Art

Movie Connections:

Version of Au bonheur des dames (1943)

Important and beautiful Impressionist silent film

Duvivier's AU BONHEUR DES DAMES is a gorgeous surprise, since along with SUNRISE, METROPOLIS, and a few other of the masterpieces of the period, it taps into so many key movements and concerns of the 1920s. It's a faithful adaptation of Zola's novel by the same name, part of his sweeping "Rougon-Macquart" series that casts a panoramic look on 19th century French society. The story, banally put, is a proto- "You've Got Mail." But instead of the giant bookseller edging out the human-scale bookstore in the neighborhood, it's a small fabric merchant vs. the huge department store. (The department story was a new phenomenon in the mid-to-late 19th century.) Like SUNRISE, this movie shows the seduction of the fast pace of the modern city, mass consumption and revolution of our desires--and the insults that modernity hurls at older ways of thinking about community and "values" such as honesty, family, and propriety.

AU BONHEUR is now available on DVD (get it from Amazon.fr, it's worth it, and the disc has an option of English titles). It is an exquisite example of what silent-era cinematic "Impressionism" was all about--including fantastic experiments with conveying sound, emotion, speed, confusion, etc. through images and their editing. In sum, this is an important film and a beautiful one. Wacky ending, but let's not spoil it... With not only Dita Parlo (cf. Vigo's L'ATALANTE), but Nadia Sbirskaya (Renoir's CRIME OF M. LANGE).