Children of Paradise

Pros: like being in 19th century Paris in all its glory; some brilliant acting
Cons: not all the characters engaged me; rather long

A quote from the 80s' movie Big< b> with Tom Hanks comes to mind as I contemplate my review of Marcel Carne's French version, some say, of Gone With The Wind< b>, which is called Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise< b>). When Hank's ...

Pros: Jean-Louis Barrault, as the mime Baptiste, breaks our hearts
Cons: Garance, the film's most important character, is miscast

Marcel Carne’s 1945 Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise) begins and ends with an explosion of color: Parisian street scenes, circa 1830, bursting with Technicolor motion as the camera glides along the “Boulevard of Crime” with its...

Pros: Vibrant sets, superb script, great theater, amazing performances
Cons: Viewer must have tolerance for subtitles and length (195 minutes in two parts)

If any film ever deserved a fifteen star rating, this would be the one: five stars just for being conceived and produced under extraordinary circumstances, five more for great production values, and the last five for a script so penetrating that it can ...

Pros: The depiction of the theatre is worth the price of the rental.
Cons: Wasn't too crazy over the romance stories.

The Children of Paradise is considered to be one of the finest French films ever made. I think that it’s just a French film, certainly appealing enough, but not really all that grand and wonderful. It’s hard to really get all that worked up over a...

Pros: characters, acting, story, direction
Cons: lengthy, subtitled

At the time of its production, Children of Paradise was the most expensive film ever made in France. More interestingly, it was made during the Nazi occupation. The film combined the talents of the most renowned director and screenwriter of the...

Pros: A beautiful film with a well-paced, engaging plot
Cons: In French with English subtitles

This review is inadequate. If it adequately described even a tenth of the beauty of Les Enfants du Paradis it would bring tears to your eyes. When you were done reading, you would stare numbly at the screen and know that it was true. You would...