Beating Heart (1940) User Reviews (4)

Pickpocket Heart.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 8/10 · 24 February 2017]

Deciding to watch a trio of French films from 1940 for ICM now IMDb has stupidly closed the boards, I started reading dbdumonteil's superb reviews. Only knowing him for his Film Noir work,I was intrigued to learn of a 1940 Comedy by Henry Decoin,which led to my beating heart pickpocketing the movie.

The plot:

Running away from her family and a girls "reform" school, Arlette ends up in a school for thieves,run by Aristide.During training,Arlette shows herself to be a pickpocket artist. Appearing to have the skills to sneak in to high society,Arlette is given the task of going to a ball and stealing ambassador Andre Luguet's watch,suspect of containing the photo of a lover linked to the cops. Entering with plans to steal the watch,Arlette soon finds Luguet stealing her heart.

View on the film:

Flourishing outside of Film Noir,director Henri Decoin & cinematographer Robert Lefebvre give the ballroom scenes a striking elegance,lit by glittering spinning shots soaking up the glamour of the Cinderella ball keeping Arlette sly skills undercover. Stepping into rehearsals with Aristide's thrives in training, Decoin gives the sequences an ultra-stylised off-beat atmosphere with mannequins giving Arlette a glimpse of a high society that is out of reach.

Taking the watch when "The European issue" was starting to cause serious concern,the screenplay by Michel Duran/Max Kolpé and Hans Wilhelm limits mention to snarky asides about diplomats being left overworked. Tracking Arlette down in an Oliver Twist-style hideout,the writers present a tantalising blend of Charles Dickens poverty and lush Cinderella wish-fulfilment,as Arlette dances from the school of got to pick a pocket or two (girl),to being a princess,who has to run away from the ball before her real identity/life is undressed.

Teaching Arlette the tricks of the trade, Saturnin Fabre gives a wonderful performance as Aristide,who Fabre sends off to gleefully cackle at poor Arlette. Looking absolutely stunning,Decoin's then- wife Danielle Darrieux gives a fantastic performance as Arlette,thanks to Darrieux retaining Arlette's earthy grit from her training,but not letting it overshadow Arlette's fairy tale beating heart.

Heartbeat

[dbdumonteil · 10 March 2010]

Henry Decoin's first efforts were virtually all sentimental comedies (except maybe "le Domino Vert" which was more melodrama -like).Rosy began to turn to black from " Les Inconnus Dans La Maison" and he became one of the masters of the French film noir;unlike what Melville did later ,his was pure French art ,displaying no influence from the American masters such as Walsh,Hathaway,Wise ,Siodmak or Farrow: "La Fille Du Diable" " Les Amoureux Du Pont Saint-Jean ""La Verite Sur Bebe Donge" "Non Coupable" are genuine classics which the new wave ignored of course.

"Battement De Coeur" is one of the last of his rosy comedies (for the record ,there would be "Je Suis Avec Toi" (1943)and like almost all the other ones ,it stars Danielle Darrieux ,then his wife and the young girls' idol."Battement De Coeur" is not unlike Mitchell Leisen's "Midnight" (1939),as French (and American)movies specialist Writer's Reign wrote.Billy Wilder's and Marcel Hachard's screenplays are very similar ,both being very Cinderellesque ."Battement De Coeur" adds a Dickensian touch with his "pick pocket's school" where the "students " learn the tricks of the trade ,under a modern Fagin's watchful eye.Dig this line : "I've not been studying in this school for months to become a constable !" .It's a pleasant comedy : Darrieux is as sparkling as champagne and that's where its attraction lies.

Battement de Coeur

[dreverativy · 30 December 2006]

I wonder whether the idea of a school of pickpockets was an inspiration for Robert Hamer's 1958 "School for Scoundrels". In any event this is a very funny, touching, stylish, lightweight piece of entertainment. It's a shame that it isn't better known in English-speaking countries.

This is definitely a (vanity?) vehicle for the excellent and evergreen Danielle Darrieux, provided by her husband, director Henri Decoin (I suppose in the manner of Anna Neagle and Herbert Willcox). Their marriage was dissolved in 1941, but the preceding six years of her career (they married in 1935) were among her most productive and rewarding. How many actresses alive today were at the peak of their careers before World War II?

This is a retelling of the Cinderella story, with the young diplomat, Pierre de Rougemont (Claude Dauphin, a polished and patient sophisticate) in the role of the prince. Saturnin Fahre (excellent here, as in "Pepe le Moko" and many other films) is a rather more benign version of the wicked stepmother. Indeed, he seems a fairly tolerant and genial crime-master.

It is hard to summarise a film that is essentially about dresses, rocks and glances. There are certainly a number of brilliant set-pieces (notably in the 'schoolroom' and at the embassy ball), but this is really a film about charm, very witty dialogue (thanks to Jean Willeme and Max Colpet) and high production values. A typical, workaday film of the 1930s - therefore far superior to most of what is produced today. It is astonishing to think that this world of whirls and romances was on the cusp of being crushed.

Round Midnight

[writers_reign · 3 July 2004]

Some six years after this early wartime release Sam Wood remade it with Ginger Rogers and succeeded in snatching a suet pudding from the jaws of a souffle. There's nothing terribly new or innovative in the Cinderella story and this Henri Decoin-Danielle Darrieux husband-and-wife entry came hot on the heels of the great Billy Wilder script 'Midnight' in which the penniless Claudette Colbert was taken under the wing of John Barrymore and introduced into Society. This time around Danielle Darrieux, who hasn't got change of a match when we see her first, enrols in Saturnin Fabre's Fagin-style school for thieves which leads directly to a meeting with an Ambassador which in turn leads to Society where Claude Dauphin is waiting to fall in love with the charming waif turned thief. It's all pure fluff, of course, but it's also all in the wrists and, it has to be said, French wrists have more style than those at Sunset and Vine. Basil Rathbone was a considerable actor in anyone's book in addition to being the finest swordsman - in the original meaning of the word - in Hollywood but compared to Saturnin Fabre he finishes a bad nowhere. It's highly unlikely that this gem will be screened outside a Festival of Classic French Films so the best that most buffs can do is lobby their local Art House. 8/10