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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: French ( Mono ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Black & White, Interactive Menu, Photo Gallery, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: A complex plot revolves around the family run 'Hotel Du Nord', located along the Canal Saint-Martin Canal in Paris. A young couple arrives and books one night having decided to kill themselves in a suicide pact. However the young man, Pierre, drops the gun and takes flight after taking the first shot at Renee, who survives and takes employment at the hotel as a chambermaid. Meanwhile the stories of a pimp and a prostitute and the various patrons and staff become interwoven in true French style. ...Hotel du Nord ( Hôtel du Nord )
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Sandwiched between Quai des Brumes and Le Jour Se Leve and with a plot beginning and ending with acts of suicide, Hotel Du Nord is in many ways the lightest of Marcel Carne's classic poetic realist movies - at least some characters get a happy ending here. Although a quite lavish production, this is no Grand Hotel exercise in glamour, following instead the thwarted lives and loves of the occupants of a small hotel by the side of Paris' Canal Saint-Martin (in reality built on the studio backlot). At times it almost feels like a Jean Renoir film, never judging its characters but allowing them the occasional moments of hope that make their lives worth living.
The film does at times feel a little unbalanced by the shift of emphasis from the would-be doomed lovers to Arletty's streetwalker and even more by Louis Jouvert's pimp who disastrously briefly discovers his true self (a performance compelling and powerful enough to make you regret the fact that Jouvert chose to make so few films), while co-writer Henri Jeansen's dislike of Jean Pierre Aumont does mean he's too busy describing himself as a piece of merde to display his usual screen charisma, yet the film is such a marvellous match of style and content that you willing go along with the film's ebb and flow. With Louis Née and Armand Thirard's gliding camerawork complimenting Alexandre Trauner's truly amazing set while Maurice Jaubert effectively reuses part of his score that had been dropped from the reissue prints of L'Atalante on the soundtrack, it's practically a masterclass in pre-war French cinema. And the ending - with one character announcing the end of the Hotel Du Nord and the coming Jour se Leve - is a neat touch that feels just right rather than just showing off.
Soda's DVD is highly recommended, offering a good 18-minute introduction by Paul Ryan and a beautiful print that looks like the film was made only yesterday.
The film does at times feel a little unbalanced by the shift of emphasis from the would-be doomed lovers to Arletty's streetwalker and even more by Louis Jouvert's pimp who disastrously briefly discovers his true self (a performance compelling and powerful enough to make you regret the fact that Jouvert chose to make so few films), while co-writer Henri Jeansen's dislike of Jean Pierre Aumont does mean he's too busy describing himself as a piece of merde to display his usual screen charisma, yet the film is such a marvellous match of style and content that you willing go along with the film's ebb and flow. With Louis Née and Armand Thirard's gliding camerawork complimenting Alexandre Trauner's truly amazing set while Maurice Jaubert effectively reuses part of his score that had been dropped from the reissue prints of L'Atalante on the soundtrack, it's practically a masterclass in pre-war French cinema. And the ending - with one character announcing the end of the Hotel Du Nord and the coming Jour se Leve - is a neat touch that feels just right rather than just showing off.
Soda's DVD is highly recommended, offering a good 18-minute introduction by Paul Ryan and a beautiful print that looks like the film was made only yesterday.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This classic among French poetic realist films of the mid-1930s was adapted from a 1929 novel by Eugene Dabit. Director Marcel Carné, best-known a decade later for CHILDREN OF PARADISE, added major star-power(Annabella, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Arletty, and Louis Jouvet)to turn Dabit's populist novel toward melodrama. Arletty's retort to Jouvet -- "Atmosphere? Atmosphere? Do I look like an atmosphere kind of girl?" (Atmosphère, atmosphère, est-ce-que j'ai une gueule d'atmosphère?)is justly memorable. Image quality and subtitles on this DVD are superb.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
A film which seems to have evaded rating as a classic french film of the Golden Age is, nonetheless, one that gave me an immense amount of pleasure when I eventually saw it. Designed as a vehicle for Annabella, she is very good, but does not really stand a chance against Arletty as the prostitute under the protection of the murderer Louis Jouvet. The scenes between Arletty and Jouvet are so good that you tend to forget about Jean-Pierre Aumont feeling very sorry for himself in prison (for having shot Annabella in a failed suicide pact). The supporting cast is full of the great actors and actresses that seemed to people the French films of that era. And what an era it was. To think that 1938 also had two of Gabin's greatest films, "La Bete Humaine" and "Quai des Brumes" plus Raimu in "La Femme du Boulanger", Renoir's "La Marseillaise" - now that is a Golden Age!
But, here you can enjoy the wonderful Louis Jouvet in all his glory(what a shame he left it until late in his career to leave a cinematic legacy to equal his reputation on stage)and Arletty, shortly to appear in "Le Jour Se Leve" and "Les Visiteurs du Soir" on the way to her great triumph in "Les Enfants du Paradis". To hear her speak here is the equivalent of listening to Edith Piaf at her most Parisian. Fascinating and almost incomprehensible, even with the script beside you, but what a great presence on the screen. Of Arletty and Jouvet, it is not too much to use the old cliche that "You will never see anything like this again", but it is, nonetheless, true here.
But, here you can enjoy the wonderful Louis Jouvet in all his glory(what a shame he left it until late in his career to leave a cinematic legacy to equal his reputation on stage)and Arletty, shortly to appear in "Le Jour Se Leve" and "Les Visiteurs du Soir" on the way to her great triumph in "Les Enfants du Paradis". To hear her speak here is the equivalent of listening to Edith Piaf at her most Parisian. Fascinating and almost incomprehensible, even with the script beside you, but what a great presence on the screen. Of Arletty and Jouvet, it is not too much to use the old cliche that "You will never see anything like this again", but it is, nonetheless, true here.
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