Coeurs Joyeux (1932) review: A clunky but charming French relic

If you have eighty minutes to spare and want to see a very young Jean Gabin before he became the god of French cinema, this weird little relic is absolutely worth a look. 🎞️

But if you hate creaky early-30s sound design where everyone sounds like they are talking into a tin can, you should probably skip it.

The whole plot hinges on a group of gangsters kidnapping a movie projectionist just so he can run a film projecter for them.

They want to watch some grainy footage of a Dutch jeweler they plan to rob, which is hilarious because... can they really not figure out how to plug in a projector themselves? 🤷‍♂️

It is like hiring a IT specialist today just to double-click a YouTube video.

But hey, it gives us our main setup.

The theater scenes at the start have this great, dusty atmosphere that I really loved.

It reminded me of the empty, dry feeling in Wanderer of the Wasteland, even though this one is set indoors in Paris.

There is this one guy in the gangster mob who just keeps squinting at the screen like he forgot his glasses.

The movie spends way too much time showing us his face instead of the actual "secret" footage.

Then we get the sister of the gangster boss, played by Josseline Gaël.

She decides to help our kidnapped hero almost instantly, mostly because he is kind of cute and has nice hair.

Talk about a fast romance.

They share one look while she is holding a tray of drinks, and suddenly she is ready to betray her entire family.

Gabin is in this, but he is not the main guy, which might disappoint some people.

He still has that magnetic energy though, even when he is just standing in the background looking slightly bored.

The audio is pretty rough in the print I watched.

Sometimes a door slams and it sounds like a gunshot, and then an actual gunshot sounds like a wet paper towel hitting the floor. 💥

Also, the music just cuts out randomly.

You will be in the middle of a tense moment, and then total silence for ten seconds, like the sound guy went to get a coffee.

It is not a masterpiece by any stretch, but it have this charming, clumsy energy that modern movies completely lack.

If you like old French stuff, give it a chance on a rainy Sunday afternoon.