Pigalle Saint Germain-des-Près (1950, France)

A landmark film in French cinematography, mixing cops and robbers with music. A successful dance band is playing in an unsuccessful Paris night club. The club is in fact a front for various forms of robbery, and this includes robbing the band of its due pay.

The band relocates to new premises, in the up and coming district in the title, near the Odéon. This area is frequented by existentialists and intellectuals, and we are given a few close-ups of these people to show us what they look like. There is also some really good rock'n'roll dancing on show. The new venue and its resident band are successful, but the people at the old club try to muscle in with an attempt at a protection racket.

Part of the band's repertoire includes some songs in which one of the male band members takes a female role, only seen briefly on the screen. In the first, there is a children's song explaining the instruments of the orchestra, and this mock Brunhilde appears (upper picture) to personify Wagnerian opera, I suppose.

Later, after they have moved to the new club, this French Maid (well, it is Paris) has a brief appearance during a song.

HF May 2003

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