DVD & Blu-ray: HOTEL DU NORD (1938) - Criterion Collection

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Product Description: Anguished young lovers, fallen women, wanted criminals, and all manner of social castoffs: these are the disreputable denizens of the Hôtel du Nord, an atmospherically seedy boardinghouse on the bustling banks of the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris, whose lives collide in Marcel Carné’s bittersweet rhapsody of romance, betrayal, revelry, and violence.

Featuring evocative production design by the famed Alexandre Trauner and a colorful ensemble cast of some of classical French cinema’s most illustrious stars—including Annabella, Louis Jouvet, and a divinely dissolute Arletty in one of her most iconic roles—poetic-realist jewel Hôtel du Nord is a sublime exemplar of Carné’s celebrated poetic realism, imbuing working-class lives and dramas with a touching nobility.

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DVD & Blu-ray: Henri-Georges Clouzot's QUAI DES ORFEVRES (1947)

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Product Description: From Henri-Georges Clouzot, the legendary director of The Wages of Fear, Diabolique, Le Corbeau and La Prisonnière, comes this classic film noir co-written by Clouzot and Jean Ferry (L’Enfer, Manon). Come see the fabulous Jenny Lamour, the singer with stars in her eyes! Ignoring the protest of her covetous husband Maurice (Bernard Blier, Buffet Froid), Jenny (Suzy Delair, Rocco and His Brothers) pursues a meeting with a lecherous movie financier. When Maurice attempts to crash the rendezvous, it’s murder! Enter Inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet, Hotel du Nord), whose seasoned instincts lead him down a circuitous path of alibis and deceit. Set within the vibrant dancehalls and historic crime corridors of 1940s Paris, Quai des Orfèvres was beautifully shot in stunning black-and-white by Armand Thirard (…And God Created Woman, La Vérité).

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DVD & Blu-ray: Jean Renoir's LA MARSEILLAISE (1938)

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Product Description: In Jean Renoir’s La Marseillaise one of the greatest French directors tells the epic story of the French Revolution with scope and intimacy. Disregarded in its time, it is only now emerging as a remarkably innovative work of historical excavation. Made towards the end of France’s left wing Popular Front government when Europe was on the brink of war, La Marseillaise is a markedly political film about a country in flux. Funded by a public subscription service and filmed in a jaunty newsreel style, it follows a cross-section of people—from the citizens of Marseilles to Louis XVI—who are affected by the shifting political and social forces in the early days of the French Revolution.

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