Saw this via YouTube 6/10/15. A predictable storyline (chumpish good guy falls for the wrong woman who involves him in illicit "jobs", then the guy falls in love with a purer sort of female, decides to make a break...etc.) Raymond Pellegrin's Philippe resembles Mickey Rooney's Eddie Shannon in "Drive a Crooked Road" (1954), but somehow Pellegrin fails to achieve a similarly strong emotional connection. The Dora Doll/Marina Vlady – good-vs. evil contrast comes off a bit better, with chanteuse Vlady believable as initially unapproachable. Director Kirsanoff years earlier proved himself one of the best cut men in the business with "Menilmontant" (1926), and unsurprisingly the recombinant narrative technique of meshing flashbacks works well -- so well that near the end, with its "this is where we came in" closing of the loop, "Le Craneur" anticipates "Pulp Fiction"'s Klein bottle by nearly four decades.
The version I saw was muddy and blurry, resulting in the loss of much of the impact expected from Roger Fellous' realistic nighttime Parisian street photography. The dialogue track was about as fogged, which combined with the lack of subtitles and my limited French made some patches hard to follow.
The version I saw was muddy and blurry, resulting in the loss of much of the impact expected from Roger Fellous' realistic nighttime Parisian street photography. The dialogue track was about as fogged, which combined with the lack of subtitles and my limited French made some patches hard to follow.
