Did You Know?
Pierre Renoir took over the role of Jéricho (an informer) after the actor Robert Le Vigan was arrested for being a Nazi collaborator. One of his scenes survives late in the film.
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A large number of members of the French Resistance worked on this film's crew, as Nazi power was at its peak in France and these fighters needed concealing.
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The name of the female lead, Garance, is the French word for the flowering plant known as madder in English, from which comes the scarlet pigment.
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Screenwriter Jacques Prévert wrote the character of Nathalie (originally called Thérèse) for actress Marie Déa.
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This involved building the largest studio set in the then history of French cinema - the quarter mile of street frontage, reproduced in scrupulous detail, representing the Boulevard du Crime, the theater district of Paris in the 1830s and 40s. This would have been a daunting prospect at the best of times but in Vichy France, when all artisans, transport, materials, costumes and film stock were all in short supply, it was a miraculous achievement.
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When Italy fell to the Nazis, the Italian co-producers left the project, causing a financial vacuum.
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The original French producer had to withdraw when he came under investigation from the Nazis.
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Production designer Alexandre Trauner and composer Joseph Kosma - both Jews - had to work in hiding and submit their ideas via intermediaries.
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Turning was ended a short time before the D-Day and the director, having planned to distribute the film after the liberation of France, had three copies printed and concealed in three different places: a cellar of the Banque de France, a strongbox of Pathé and a Provence country house.
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Several of the characters are based on real people: Frédérick Lemaître (1800 - 1876), noted French actor and playwright; Jean-Gaspard Deburau, or Debureau (1796 - 1846), a Bohemian-French actor and mime, performing at the Théâtre des Funambules; Pierre François Lacenaire (1800 - 1836) a noted French poet and murderer, and inspiration for Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment; Victor Avril, a henchman of Lacenaire.
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The character, the Count de Montray, is inspired by the Duc de Morny - Charles Auguste Louis Joseph de Morny, 1st Duc de Morny (1811 - 1865), a French statesman and natural son of Hortense de Beauharnais and Charles Joseph, Comte de Flahaut, and thus half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III.
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Frederick refers to Theophile Gautier. Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (1811 - 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and literary critic.
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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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"L'Auberge Des Adrets", the play performed by Frederick in Part 2, was written by Benjamin Antier and performed for the first time in 1823, featuring the real Frederick Lemaitre. ' Robert Macaire' is a character in this play and in another play eponymously titled and performed in 1835.
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Garance says she modeled for Ingres. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780 -1867) was a French Neoclassical painter noted for his portraits and his depictions of historical and mythical events.
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The lines Frederick reads aloud in bed at Madame Hermine's are from Othello, Act 5 Scene 2.
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The film's title refers to the people who sat in the upper balcony of the theatre. This is where the lower classes sat, as the seats were significantly cheaper that the ones below (as noted in the film itself). It is the French equivalent of the term used in English theatres, "the gods."
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The Horatti and Curatii are two families of ancient Latium. A war between two cities of Latium, Rome and Alba Longa, was to be decided by a combat between the three Horatii bothers (Rome) and the three Curatii brothers (Alba Longa). The Horatii won, but of the six combatants only one survived. A painting by Jacques Louis David portrays the Horatii before the battle.
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