Release in a difficult period for French directors (1941) Christian Jaque found a good story to tell involving children, including Mouloudji who had a great singer career later on.
Plot summary
Abandoned children, left to their own devices and a life of danger, are adopted by a kind man.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Christian Jaque for a good drama
if you like melodramas showing "la Zone" ...
... "l'Enfer des Anges" (nice title) is for you. I've always appreciated french movies shot on real location (Campement 13),being some kind of documentary of places that would be replaced around the 60's. In "l'Enfer des Anges", scenes seem shot in real squalid slums, inspiring the director of photography very fine shots, those places being dark at nightfall. There are some virtuoso camera movements, when Jean brings Lucette to his place (kind of Max Ophüls's crane movement) or a travelling showing all the kids and other people (great Jean Tissier playing a trifle like Jules Berry a nasty hoodlum, young Mouloudji, Bernard Blier as a bar owner,...). The dialogues are also very popular and strong, like in the scene when a father beats to death his child, a very hard scene (and not isolated at that time). Not a masterpiece but so interesting.