The Crime of Monsieur Lange
(1936)
★ 7.1 IMDb · 100 votes
Year: 1936
Runtime: 80 мин
Country: France
Director: Jean Renoir
Cast: René Lefèvre, Florelle, Jules Berry, Marcel Lévesque, Odette Talazac, Надя Сибирская, Henri Guisol, Maurice Baquet, Jacques Brunius, Sylvain Itkine
Plot
Mild-mannered novelist of Western fiction, Amédée Lange, and his colleagues take over a publishing house after their exploitative boss disappears, only for the superior to return and try to reclaim the profits from their successful cooperative.
A man and a woman arrive in a cafe-hotel near the Belgian frontier. The customers recognize the man from the police description. His name is Amedee Lange, and he murdered Batala in Paris. His ladyfriend Valentine tells the whole story: Lange was an employee in Batala's little printing works. Batala was a real bastard, swindling everyone, seducing female workers of Valentine's laundry - One day, he fled to avoid facing his creditors, and the workers set up a cooperative to go on working. But the plot is less important that the description of the atmosphere just before the Popular Front.