Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Watch us on Youtube Join the Archive Mailing List Read our Blog
Catalog
Directions
Open Collection MenuMobile Navigation

La Petite Lise  /  Daïnah la Métisse

La Petite Lise
October 25, 2015 - 7:00 pm
Billy Wilder Theater
In-person: 
Janet Bergstrom, UCLA.

La Petite Lise  (France, 1930)


Director Jean Grémillon's first talking picture sees a working-class man return home from prison, only to find that his young daughter has fallen into prostitution as a matter of survival, whereupon he seeks to rescue her from degradation and danger.  Striking experiments with lighting, mise-en-scène and the new sound technology enhance Grémillon's poetic realism with a well-modulated documentary immediacy.

35mm, b/w, in French with English subtitles, 84 min.  Production: Pathé-Natan.  Distribution: Pathé Consortium Cinéma.  Producers: Bernard Natan, Emile Natan.  Director: Jean Grémillon.  Screenwriter: Charles Spaak.  Cinematographer: Jean Bachelet.  Composer: Roland Manuel.  With: Nadia Sibirskaïa, Pierre Alcover, Julien Berteau, Raymond Cordy, Alex Bernard.

Daïnah la métisse  (France, 1932)


A beautiful multiracial woman travels on an ocean liner with her well-to-do, magician husband, while flirting with several white men.  When she disappears from the ship, both the husband and a ship's engineer are implicated in the mystery.  A shocking (in its time) flouting of colonial politics, the film was drastically cut by its distributor.  Disavowed afterward by director Jean Grémillon, it dazzles nonetheless.

35mm, b/w, in French with English subtitles, 51 min.  Production: Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert.  Distribution: Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert.  Director: Jean Grémillon.  Based on the novel by Pierre Daye.  Screenwriter: Charles Spaak.  Cinematographer: Louis Page, Georges Périnal.  Production Design: Jacques Lafitte.  With: Habib Benglia, Charles Vanel, Laurence Clavius, Gaston Dubosc.

Part of: 
Jean Grémillon: Le Ciel est à Vous