BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 23 January 1942 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Rivoli: 24 January 1942. U.S. release: 9 January 1942. Australian release: 27 August 1942. 8,400 feet. 93 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Stranded in Paris, five Allied flyers - one of them badly wounded - attempt to escape the Nazis.NOTES: Hollywood debut (note that word "Hollywood", not "English language", not "American film") of Paul Henreid. English language debut of Michele Morgan. Alan Ladd's last film before This Gun For Hire catapulted him to major stardom.COMMENT: After a dramatically inventive opening (utilizing stock footage and the finger-doll chorus from The Gay Divorcee singing "Don't Let It Bother You" by Harry Revel and Mack Gordon), the film starts in fine thriller style with a brilliant series of fast-action, silhouettes-in-the mist tableaux from cinematographer Russell Metty. Nor does the pace let up when the scene shifts to Paris and Michele Morgan is finally introduced. Although not over-flatteringly photographed, she gives a poignant performance which rivals both in intensity and power Laird Cregar's elegantly vicious Gestapo chief. A pity Paul Henried (yes, he does occasionally spell his name that way) cannot match either of these players in charismatic fascination. True he acts fairly convincingly, even with sincerity, but young Alan Ladd (admittedly in a showy role) runs rings around him. Alexander Granach (of Warning Shadows and Nosferatu fame) also has one of the best roles of his career here - as a postage stamp! Doubtless the scriptwriters thought up his wonderful piece of business with the handkerchief, the gun and the little girl, but he plays it admirably, like a sort of latter-day Louis Wolheim. We must also commend John Abbott who has an effective cameo as an about-to-be-executed spy.It's correct as some critics have commented that quite a few of the script's details don't quite ring true. We could even add to the list, for example the Bible that Mitchell brings to the cell looks remarkably thin for a Catholic Bible. And it's 99.9% unlikely that any priest - or even a bishop or cardinal - would recognize the obscure verses from Proverbs and Job that Abbott asks for (even though these do allow the writers to get in the obligatory Old Testament quotes that Hollywood films are famous for). I also marvel at Henreid's proficiency in Latin. Even a priest would be hard pressed to put words to paper with such celerity.Pay no mind to me. What if the script is full of holes? Stevenson's driving direction of the fast-paced plot leaves little time for reflection on these matters. And when Morgan, Ladd, Cregar, Abbott and company are on screen, and when that screen is flooded or shadowed with Metty's lights, and when the sets are so artistically atmospheric, there's simply no time, no inclination whatever, to dissect trivialities. I'm inclined to agree with Bennett (below).OTHER VIEWS: I love Joan of Paris. It's my favorite of all the pictures I've ever been connected with. - Charles Bennett.Michele Morgan's first American (and indeed English-language) film starts off rather inventively with a musical clip from Gay Divorcee cut into a blank screen with narration off-camera and some strikingly composed and lit images with Nazi soldiers shrouded by fog and a superbly lit sequence in a church with shadows and silhouettes atmospherically built up by a background of choral music. In fact the directorial and photographic imaginativeness does not fade until, oddly enough, the entrance of Miss Morgan herself. It's as if the director thought that once the stage was set for her and she was actually on-camera she would take the whole weight of the film on her shoulders, save for some assistance from the delightfully and suavely evil presence of Laird Cregar as the Gestapo chief and the late entrance of May Robson giving a rather exaggerated portrayal of a schoolteacher/spy (but they are neither in the film all that much). Miss Morgan is rather poorly and unattractively photographed too and it seems as if the scriptwriter has really had to scratch his head to provide her with enough dialogue to justify her star billing. She has a ridiculous little monologue to her patron saint (incidentally she speaks English perfectly with hardly the slightest trace of an accent) and shares a lot of unconvincing and highly implausible romantic dialogue with Paul Henried who has a sort of precursor (in two senses) of his role in Casablanca. Presumably Alan Ladd had already been picked for stardom in This Gun For Hire when this film was being made or edited which explains the large number of close-ups he enjoys for so small a part (and not very convincingly enacted either!). There is a nice study by Alex Granach who plays an almost comic Gestapo agent with the talents of a leech (the extended series of sequences in which Henried tries to lose him is almost comic and seems to have been treated in a somewhat ambivalent fashion by Stevenson). Art direction, music scoring as well as photography, are plus factors and the film has been realized on a sizable budget. - John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.

robert-temple-1 The only way I was able to obtain a DVD of this film directed by Robert Stevenson, a particular favourite of mine, was to order it from French Amazon. Because the subject is Paris under the Nazis, it appeals to our Gallic friends, and they are the only ones who sell it (Editions Montparnasse, as part of their RKO classics series). Stevenson directed this the year before JANE EYRE (1943). It is not one of his most inspired films, but it is robust and impressive, and good viewing. The film works because of the sheer professionalism of Paul Henreid as the lead and the amazing screen presence of the 22 year-old French actress, Michele Morgan. They click as a couple. As the film was made in wartime, Paris obviously could not be used as a location, so a great deal of trouble was taken to try to show Paris without showing Paris. A huge effort by the plasterers went into producing a replica of the west door of Notre Dame Cathedral, even though we glimpse it only for a few seconds as Paul Henreid flits by it, glancing nervously about him to see if he is being followed, since Gestapo agents are everywhere, and they are after him, as he is a Free French flyer who has been shot down on a flight from London. He encounters Michele Morgan by accident, and she falls for him. She is a simple shop girl who has never had a relationship before. Rarely was there a young actress who could look up lovingly into the eyes of a male lead in a film with as wide-eyed and innocent a look at Michele Morgan. From being a sweet and gentle little thing who couldn't harm a fly, she ends up a heroine who joins the Resistance, hence she is called 'Jeanne de Paris', giving the film its title. It was a good wartime yarn to boost morale and remind people outside France that not everyone in Paris was a collaborator, though God knows there were enough of those. Laird Cregar (who died tragically two years later, aged only 31) does a sinister job of playing 'Herr Funck', the head of the Paris Gestapo, a chess player and oily schemer. He locates Henreid but decides to let him continue his contacts before 'wheeling him in on his string when the time is right'. This tactic may sound far-fetched but it was precisely the tactic used in the 1930s by Heydrich and Himmler when they were running the Special Security Department of the Reichs Fuehrer SS (Himmler) but were unsatisfied with that and wished to seize control of the Gestapo, which had been founded by their rival Goering. They identified and located two communist agents who were well advanced in a serious plot to assassinate Goering. Instead of informing Goering or his Gestapo, they risked Goering's life (which frankly did not bother them) to score the coup of becoming the ones to save his life under the uninformed nose of his own deputy, Diels. They just pulled this off, which humiliated and disgraced Diels, so that he lost his job, and they ended up taking over the Gestapo because they had proved their superior brilliance and competence. This story was already well known by 'those in the know' amongst the Allies by the time the script for this film was written, and that plot element was probably inspired by the earlier real event in Germany. The scenes set in the Paris sewers were done in the studio with great care, and I was amazed that a great pool of swirling sewage was lovingly created so that we could glimpse it in the background. Perhaps it was meant as a portrait of the mentality of the Nazi occupiers. Or would that be flattering them? Ultimately, this film derives its charm from Henreid and Morgan, and that is the reason for searching it out and seeing it.

bkoganbing Joan of Paris is best known for the joint debut of both Michelle Morgan and Paul Henreid on the American cinema. Henreid is a member of the Free French flying with the RAF and he and the crew are shot down over occupied France. Henreid and the group including a wounded Alan Ladd make their way to Paris where he tries to contact either the French underground or any British intelligence operatives.When Henreid came, he came to stay in America, becoming a citizen years later. Morgan made a few films and went back to France after the war where she resumed her star status. She and Jean Gabin are probably the two most well known French players who managed to flee the occupation and continue their careers on foreign soil.Henreid displays all the charm later put to full advantage in Casablanca and Now Voyager. Their romance is tender and all too tragically brief. Like Casablanca, Henreid wants to get back in the fight. Morgan, who's patron saint is Joan of Arc, will sacrifice all to aid him.The best performance in this film is that of 20th Century Fox loan out to RKO, Laird Cregar. Cregar, a clever and epicene occupier who's bulk suggests Herman Goering, is the relentless pursuer of the downed fliers. Alan Ladd scored a notable success as the kid flier although he tries at times to affect a British accent. They should have just made him Canadian as they did all the other American actors who played in British locations and situations. It wasn't as bad as Gregory Peck's in The Paradine Case though.Joan of Paris is a good, but routine product from RKO, one of the minor studios. In her next film Morgan would be opposite that American icon making his feature film role debut, Frank Sinatra in Higher and Higher. Still she and Henreid acquit themselves well, albeit in a minor key.

trpdean This is a beautifully made, written and directed movie. Paul Henreid (you may remember him from Now Voyager lighting the two cigarettes for himself and Bette Davis - or in Casablanca as the Czech resistance figure with Ingrid Bergman whom she is helping to escape the Continent to fight again) is very moving and believable as a French squadron leader based in England with the Free French forces.Henreid always comes off well in European roles - he SEEMS foreign, very romantic in a rather exotic Continental manner.He and four other fighter pilots based in England were clearing the way for the first British bombing raids on Germany, when they were shot down over France. They are trying to return to England via Paris (where Henreid's childhood teacher is now the dean of a cathedral and may help) - but only if they can contact British intelligence agents whom they must first identify and try to locate. Even with the help of the British intelligence and French secret agents, they must then evade the Gestapo that haunts Henreid's path through Paris.Henreid meets and is harbored by Michelle Morgan playing the title character, and who only gradually comes to understand who Henreid is. The simplicity, modesty, and religious and romantic nature of her barmaid are shown so lovingly. She falls in love very quickly - yet this seems completely a part of this girl's makeup - throughout you sense the enormity of this one great thing in this girl of poverty who lives alone on the top floor, above the cafe, with her tiny shrine to Joan of Arc.The sets are astonishing - one feels as if one really is in Paris and one of its great cathedrals, in its sewers, its steam baths, its cafes.Henreid's attempts to lose the Gestapo agent (a "postage stamp" sticking to him) is suspenseful and imaginative - a wonderful game of cat and mouse throughout Paris to join his comrades.The movie is extremely and wonderfully romantic - the discourse of the two lovers - one doomed - is terribly moving and painful. I rented this one week, and could not resist renting it again when I entered the store.This is a wonderful and underrated movie.