While Paris Sleeps (1932) User Reviews

A pretty good hour long sleazy pre-code

[NicML · 7/10 · 2 March 2011]

The film starts out with Victor McLaglen's character escaping from Devil's Island, in order to reach his dying wife, and before his daughter(Helen Mack) is turned out on the streets. When he reaches Paris his wife has already died, and daughter has just been kicked out of where they were living.Now his goal is to stop her from being taken advantage of by a group of thugs who want to pimp her out under the guise of "modeling in South America". Jack La Rue plays one of the main thugs, who I have a feeling wants to do more than pimp her out. There is some great pre-code moments, such as the scene where the police snitch gets thrown in an oven by the thugs, and the undressing scene where you and Jack La Rue get to see a whole lot of Helen Mack.

Sleazy melodrama you don't expect from the 1930's

[dbborroughs · 7/10 · 29 November 2010]

Getting word that his wife is dying and the daughter he never really knew maybe in trouble a man escapes from Devil's Island. Arriving in Paris too late he finds his wife dead and his daughter turned out by the landlord. She has taken a job in a dive bar as a dance hall girl. Can he get his daughter out of trouble? Sleazy little film is very precode with the implications of sex and violence all around (they throw a man into a furnace alive and screaming). Its very much the sort of thing they wouldn't do after this for another twenty or twenty five years. Its the sort of film thats fun once, but i can't imagine watching it again.

Life in the Paris gutter

[richard-1787 · 3/10 · 19 October 2014]

This is the sort of movie Hollywood made in the 1920s and 30s that played to a fascination with how "the other half" lived. It tells the story of a young woman who is left penniless at the death of her mother, and thrown out on the streets of Paris. She gets a job working in a dance hall, where the manager intends to sell her to a wealthy South American.

That young woman is the daughter of a convict, Victor McLaglin, who just escaped from Devil's Island and returns to Paris to see her.

It's all pretty much 1930s melodrama. A few scenes could have been touching if they had been better developed.

I can't say that this movie really has anything to recommend it. McLaglin gave much better performances later, in such movies as Wee Willie Winkee and Gunga Din.