Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre (1935)
Directed by Abel Gance

Film Review

If Abel Gance had any ambitions of being a cinematic revolutionary at the start of the sound era these surely came crashing down to earth when his first sound film, La Fin du monde (1931), was received with as much enthusiasm as an outbreak of bubonic plague.  This monumental failure not only ruined Gance financially, it also struck a mortal blow to his self-esteem and for the rest of his career he became a slave to commercial cinema, making films, as he put it, "not to live, but so as not to die."  Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre was one of a series of trite melodramas that came Gance's way in the 1930s for which he had next to no enthusiasm but which he was forced into directing so that he could stay in the business of filmmaking.

If Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre has an author at all, it is more likely to be its screenwriter André Mouëzy-Éon than Gance, whose personal stamp is conspicuous by its absence in all but a few scenes.  Mouëzy-Éon is best known as a playwright, a writer of comedies and operettas, his best-known piece being the army farce Tire-au-flanc.  Octave Feuillet's novel had already been adapted for cinema three times, most recently by Gaston Revel in 1926, and it would inspire Ettore Scola for his 1995 film Romanzo di un giovane povero.

Gance makes a fair attempt to emulate the realism of Feuillet's novel and some sequences are strikingly modern in their naturalism.  Unfortunately, the outrageous plot contrivances and some mannered acting from Marie Bell and Pierre Fresnay (whose on-screen chemistry is negligible) rapidly drain the film of credibility.  André Baugé, a one time star of the Opéra-Comique in Paris, crops up, in one of his last film appearances, to contribute a truly dreadful musical interlude, and it is left to some talented supporting players (Saturnin Fabre, Pauline Carton, Marcel Delaître) to rescue the film as best they can.  As far as 1930s melodramas go, this one is reasonably watchable, albeit somewhat dated and unlike anything you'd expect Abel Gance to put his name to.

Film Synopsis

Maxime Hauterive de Champcey, an impoverished aristocrat, has difficulty finding work but finally manages to obtain the post of estate manager to a wealthy family, the Laroques.  Within no time, Maxime has fallen in love with his employers' daughter, Marguerite, but she repels his advances, believing him to be a fortune hunter.  Maxime is on the point of giving up his post when he learns that he is the rightful owner of the Laroques' fortune...