FILMOGRAPHY • 211
tringuez. Andre Bazin left a note which summarizes the film in a different way: "A little street singer is noticed by a Russian prince, who takes her on as his protegee. This lower-class woman accustoms herself to the prince's elegant life style without difficulty, but her adoptive father, who has also been taken in by the prince, steals an enormous sapphire from their benefactor. The prince has the innocent Marquitta kicked out. The little singer becomes famous singing her street songs in elegant dance halls. One day she runs into the prince, who, having lost his fortune in a revo lution, has joined a Russian dancing troupe. The stolen sapphire saves the prince from a life of misery and assures the happiness of the reunited lovers." In his pamphlet Jean Renoir, published in the series Al bums Diapositives, Claude Beylie tells the tale in yet a third fashion: "The prince, the heir of Decarlie, falls for a little street singer on a trip to Paris. In spite of the warnings of his cham berlain, he goes off to the Riviera with her, where they live in high style. They cause a scandal at Cannes. The rest of the film is comprised of a series of adventures-the arrival of the singer's father (a crafty thief) ; an affair involving the dynastic legacy of the Soviet crown; the sudden return of the prince, fed up with the excesses of his mistress, to his native land; his exile following a palace revolution; their reunion in Nice; an auto mobile chase along the cliffs." We know that to make the film Renoir had to construct a miniature of the Barbes metro station, which appeared life size when reflected in a mirror. The actors worked in front of the mirror. It was a variation of Abel Gance's "pictograph." FRAN~OIS
TRUFFAUT
Back on his feet, Renoir joined with Jean Tedesco, manager of the Theatre du Vieux-Colombier, and set up a tiny studio in the attic of