Les enfants du paradis

Les enfants du paradis (Alternative Title: Children of Paradise) is a pre-certed UK VHS release by Thorn EMI Video on January 1983.
==Description==
The word masterpiece is often used but seldom justified in the cinema. Marcel Carne's Les Enfants du Paradis is one of the few films that warrants this accolade. Moreover, it is something of a miracle that this film was made at all. It was produced under fraught circumstances during the German occupation and filming was halted several times. It's believed that members of the French Resistance took part in the immense crowd scenes, which provided good cover for them. When it was finally shown in 1945 it was a revelation: a stunning romantic spectacle set in the nineteenth century Paris of Louis Philippe, brimming with energy and vitality. In Jacques Prevert's superbly cinematic screenplay, the 'children of paradise' are the colourful inhabitants of the boulevards of the time - pick-pockets, artists, cut-throats, writers, thieves, beggars, soldiers of fortune. At night they sit in the 'gods' in the Funambules Theatre to abuse or cheer along the characters on the stage. The plot concentrates on the lives and dreams of a small band of bohemian actors. The exquisite Arletty, with her expressive eyes, is the woman who is loved by many men but remains true in her heart to only one. Her presence is the still centre of the swirling narrative in which Pierre Brasseur, as an ambitious young actor, and Jean-Louis Barrault, the eternal pagliacci clown, give bravura performances. The first half of the film deals with the squalid poverty stricken struggle for existence in the slums; the second half follows the heroine into high society when she marries a wealthy count. But throughout, despite a poignant ending, it maintains an exhilarating zest for life, tinged with its director's fatalism and heightened by Roger Hubert's dazzling photography. Les Enfants du Paradis has survived all the fads and fashions in films, from neo-realism to surrealist melodrama, and is now acknowledged as a timeless classic.
==Cast==
*Arletty as Claire "Garance" Reine
*Jean-Louis Barrault as Baptiste Deburau
*Pierre Brasseur as Frédérick Lemaître
*Marcel Herrand as Pierre-François Lacenaire
*Pierre Renoir as Jéricho
*María Casares as Nathalie (credited as María Casarès)
*Louis Salou as Comte Édouard de Montray
*Gaston Modot as Fil de Soie
*Fabien Loris as Avril
*Marcel Pérès as Director of the Funambules
*Pierre Palau as Stage manager of the Funambules
*Etienne Decroux as Anselme Debureau (credited as Étienne Decroux)
*Jane Marken as Mme. Hermine (credited as Jeanne Marken)
*Marcelle Monthil as Marie
*Louis Florencie as Policeman
*Raymond Rognoni as Director, 'Grand Theatre'
*Jacques Castelot as George
*Paul Frankeur as Police Inspector
*Albert Rémy as Scarpia Barrigni
*Robert Dhéry as Celestin
*Auguste Bovério as First Author (credited as Auguste Boverio)
*Paul Demange as Second Author
Category:VHS
Category:UK VHS Releases
Category:1983 VHS Releases
Category:Thorn EMI Video logo from 1982 to 1985