Le rosaire (1934) Review - A dusty, dramatic French weepie

Honestly, you should only watch Le rosaire if you have a completely free Sunday afternoon and a very high tolerance for people sighing heavily near velvet curtains. If you want fast plots, you will absolutely hate this.

But for those of us who love dusty, slow French melodramas from the 1930s, there is a weird, cozy magic here. 🥀

The story is based on that super famous old novel by Florence L. Barclay. It’s all about a plain woman with an amazing singing voice and the handsome artist who loves her.

Then, of course, some tragic stuff happens, including him going blind later. It is peak melodrama, the kind of story where people write long, painful letters instead of just talking.

I’ve seen my share of vintage tearjerkers, like The Lovelorn, but this one has a very specific, slow rhythm. Sometimes the camera just sits there, staring at a piano for what feels like three minutes too long.

You can almost hear the director whispering "action" from behind the curtain. It’s not polished, and that is exactly why I kind of liked it.

Wally Carveno plays the lead, and she has this incredibly intense way of staring. In one scene, she looks at a letter with so much concentration I thought her eyes were going to burn a hole through the paper.

It is hilariously dramatic but also oddly sweet. The sound quality is pretty rough, though, like everyone is speaking through a tin can filled with wet sand.

There is also André Luguet, who brings a bit of actual energy to the screen. Every time he shows up, the movie gets noticeably lighter, like someone finally opened a window in a dusty room.

It reminds me a bit of those old-school society dramas, almost like The Sporting Duchess. Everyone is very rich but also very miserable.

A few weird things I noticed:

• The main actor's hair stays perfectly glued to his head, even during a dramatic rain storm. 🌧️
• One extra in the background of a party scene is just openly eating a piece of bread and looking directly at the camera.
• The piano music is so loud it completely drowns out some of the dialogue, which honestly might have been a mercy.

Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not.

It is clumsy, the pacing drags in the middle, and the ending is so rushed it feels like they ran out of film. But there is a sincere heart to it that you just don't get in modern movies.

It’s like finding an old, faded postcard in a thrift store. You don't know the people, but you still feel a little sad for them.