"The Slump Is Over." At the Curzon Now that British
and American films are becoming more and more alike in tone and technique, a French film, now and then, is unusually refreshing, for it is fairly sure to have a strong national quality. French productions seldom reach the highest levels of Hollywood efficiency—indeed, their casual manner is part of their charm—but they usually have a certain bitter-sweet flavour—a mixture of sentiment and irony—which never goes very deep, perhaps, but is often preferable to the more turgid emotions favoured by English-speaking producers.
The Slump Is Over—shown with French dialogue and English captions—has a simple story about the attempts of a group of young revue performers to put on a show in a derelict Paris theatre and their adventures with an unpleasant music-dealer, who is eventually imprisoned under the stage door-trap. Albert Prejean—the street singer of Sow /es Toils de Paris—has a leading part, and there are several neat character-sketches of other members
Previous page
