Cinema
The Child of Paris
L'Enfant de Paris
Léonce Perret · 1913
Synopsis
The daughter of a captain reported missing, left an orphan, is placed in a Paris boarding school. She escapes from it and falls into the hands of crooks, one of whom takes her as far as Nice. Le Bosco, a young apprentice to a cobbler linked to the gang, takes the child's side and sets off in pursuit of the kidnapper, from the suburbs of the capital to the Côte d'Azur.
Context
Produced by Gaumont, the film is one of the first French feature films: depending on the prints, it runs from one hour forty minutes to more than two hours. Perret wrote the screenplay, and Georges Specht was credited with the cinematography, noted for its backlit scenes and its light filtering through the shutters. Henri Langlois, who screened it at the Cinémathèque française, saw in it directorial daring that would later be attributed to American filmmakers of the forties. The film has been restored from Gaumont's nitrate negative.
Who it is for
A silent melodrama of nearly two hours, for those who want to see what French cinema could do with light and suspense as early as 1913.
Prizes and reception
Its restoration is based on the Gaumont negative; it was published in English in the three-disc box set devoted to the treasures of the company.
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