Children of Paradise (1945)
"Les enfants du paradis" (original title)

This tale centers around the love between Baptiste, a theater mime, and Claire Reine, an actress and otherwise woman-about-town who calls herself Garance. Garance, in turn, is loved by ... See full summary »

Director:

Marcel Carné

Writer:

Jacques Prévert (scenario and dialogue)

Stars:

Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur

Nominated for 1 Oscar.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Arletty	...	Caire Reine, dite Garance
Jean-Louis Barrault	...	Jean-Baptiste Debureau
Pierre Brasseur	...	Frédérick Lemaître
Pierre Renoir	...	Jéricho
María Casares	...	Nathalie (as María Casarès)
Gaston Modot	...	Fil de Soie
Fabien Loris	...	Avril
Marcel Pérès	...	Le directeur des Funambules
Palau	...	Le régisseur des Funambules (as Pierre Palau)
Etienne Decroux	...	Anselme Debureau (as Étienne Decroux)
Jane Marken	...	Mme Hermine (as Jeanne Marken)
Marcelle Monthil	...	Marie
Louis Florencie	...	Le gendarme des 'Adrets'
Habib Benglia	...	L'employé des bains turcs
Rognoni	...	Le directeur du Grand Théâtre

Storyline

This tale centers around the love between Baptiste, a theater mime, and Claire Reine, an actress and otherwise woman-about-town who calls herself Garance. Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: Frederick, a pretentious actor; Lacenaire, a conniving thief; and Count Eduard of Monteray. The story is further complicated by Nathalie, an actress who is in love with Baptiste. Garance and Baptiste meet when Garance is falsely accused of stealing a man's watch. Garance is forced to enter the protection of Count Eduard when she is innocently implicated in a crime committed by Lacenaire. In the intervening years of separation, both Garance and Baptiste become involved in loveless relationships with the Count and Nathalie, respectively. Baptiste is the father of a son. Returning to Paris, Garance finds that Baptiste has become a famous mime actor. Nathalie sends her child to foil their meeting, but Baptiste and Garance manage one night together. Lacenaire murders Edouard. In the last ...

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Plot Keywords:

count | love | mime | actor | actress | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

15 November 1946 (USA)

Also Known As:

Children of Paradise

Filming Locations:

Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Société Nouvelle Pathé Cinéma

Technical Specs

Runtime:

190 min 163 min (edited)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Garance says she grew up in Meilmontant. Menilmontant, known affectionately as "Ménilmuche", was part of the commune of Belleville, and is now a suburb of Paris, part of the city's 20th arrondissement. It was absorbed into the City of Paris in 1860.

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Goofs

The positions of Avril and Lacenaire in the Turkish baths changes between the shot of their entry and the closer shot.

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Quotes

Baptiste: You were right, Garance. Love is simple.

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Connections

Featured in The Story of Film: An Odyssey: Episode #1.4 (2011)

User Reviews

The Paramount Best Movie Ever Produced as a 'Gesamtkunstwerk'

1995 was the centennial of the invention of movies. In Stockholm the event was celebrated, inter alia, by showing 'Les enfants du paradis' free of charge on the French National Day. It was presented as the best French movie ever made. Perhaps it was felt not to be polite toward other countries to talk of the best movie made in any countries. But many (not all) experts agree that it is indeed so. And so do I. I saw the film for the first time in 1954, and have never changed my mind about its paramount position. But whatever you may think in this respect, one of the most prominent features is that the movie is a 'GESAMTKUNSTWERK'. This word was invented by Richard Wagner to indicate a work in which music, text, and visual arts fuse or amalgamate into a unity. Concerning the movie at hand, the word is of course taken in a different sense. The movie contains all kinds of cinematic categories: mass scenes perhaps with 10'000 extras, chamber play with close-up photos of emotional faces, deep and genuine love, superficial sex, friendship, comic pantomime, tragic pantomime, comic theatre (that is, both the theatre scene and the public on the screen), tragic theatre, murder, hand-to-hand-fighting, pocket-picking, etc. And everything put together into one single film. Even more, whenever a section is comic, it rests so completely in the comic mood that the spectator cannot imagine that the entire movie was not comic from the first beginning, and will not remain so to the last end. Whenever it is tragic, it rests equally completely in the tragic mood, as if it had never been anything else than tragic and would never leave the tragic mood. Despite this heterogeneity, the movie does not split up in disparate fragments, but forms a genuine whole. The writer was the really great poet Jacques Prévert, and it tells much about his unusual competence that, on the one hand, each scene is superb when seen in isolation and, on the other hand, each scene does not therefore fit less perfectly in the film as a whole. - - - To some people it may be interesting to know that four of the roles are real historical persons: the actor Frederick Lemaître, the pantomimic performer Baptiste Debureau, the mediocre gangster Jean-François Lacenaire, and the latter's assistant Avril. Lacenaire was executed in 1836. His memoirs, which were written while he awaited execution, are published in English translation.