Details

Release year: 1945

Storyline

The theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan in 1830s Paris and the four men who love her.

Top credits

Directors

Marcel Carné

Writers

Jacques Prévert

Cast

Arletty — Claire Reine, dite Garance
Jean-Louis Barrault — Baptiste Debureau
Pierre Brasseur — Frédérick Lemaître
Pierre Renoir — Jéricho

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Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

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Did you know

• Filming was completed a short time before 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.

• 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.

• 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."