#68
France | 110 min.
1.37:1 OAR
black & white
monaural
Special Features
• New high definition digital transfer
• New and improved optional English subtitles
• 28-page booklet with a newly written essay about the film by critic and scholar Ginette Vincendeau; numerous short essays by Jacques Feyder; and eulogies from Feyder’s contemporaries following the filmmaker’s death.
Le Grand jeu
Jacques Feyder, 1934
A marvellous rediscovery from the golden age of French cinema, Jacques Feyder’s Le Grand jeu is a tragic doppelgänger romance, steered by the fate of the tarot card, and set against the dizzying exoticism of 1930s Morocco.
When scandalous Parisian playboy Pierre Martel (Pierre Richard-Willm) is forced by his family to leave France and his adored lover Florence (Marie Bell), he begins a new life in the Foreign Legion as Pierre Muller. Drowning his regrets in camaraderie, whores, and hell-raising, he is astonished at meeting Irma (also Marie Bell), a prostitute with an uncanny resemblance to his beloved, and begins a fitful scheme to allow her escape.
An early benchmark of poetic realism and a fascinating precursor to both Duvivier’s Pépé le Moko and Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Feyder’s fluid, masterful storytelling make this a unique classic of the screen: vividly forceful yet subtle, acutely observed yet fantastic, world-weary yet tender. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present its UK home viewing premiere.