24 •
JEAN RENOIR
reel and only half a dozen close-ups, including that of the cham ber pot. Most of it was shot within the three walls of a stage set. And the film was completed after six days of preparation, four days of shooting, and six of editing. Less than two weeks later it opened at the Aubert-Palace, and by the end of the first week it had earned back its entire cost.
La Clzienne
(1931 )
The film opens with a prologue introducing the work and its characters. A gendarme appears and intones, "You are going to see an allegorical drama, etc., etc." Guignol * arrives, thrashes the gendarme, and insists that the film has no message and will not teach anyone anything at all. M. Legrand appears at the beginning as a model employee. He is a cashier in a small hosiery company. Bored at a small party given in honor of the boss by the employees, he nonethe less refuses to follow his colleagues to a brothel. On his way home he encounters a drunk, Dede, beating his mistress, Lulu. He intervenes and takes the young woman home in a taxi. Lulu promises to write him. At home he accidentally makes some noise and awakens his wife, Adele, who castigates him and invokes the memory of her first husband, Sergeant Godard. M. Legrand waits for the storm to pass and turns to his paintings. M. Legrand is a Sunday painter. M. Legrand has set Lulu up in a small Montmartre apart ment. He visits her during the day while Lulu saves her nights for Dede. But Dede becomes more and more demanding. He is angry that Lulu cannot get more money out of Legrand, whom they both believe to be quite wealthy. One day, Dede takes Le grand's canvasses (which the poor man has brought to Lulu's • Guignol is a stock ,haracter of the French puppet theater. A colorful figure, he is good-humored and clever, and while sometimes duped, he is never bested. Trans.