L'Argent (1928)

Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: L'argent

Director: Marcel L'Herbier

Writers: Arthur Bernède, Marcel L'Herbier, Émile Zola

Cinematographers: Louis Berte, Jules Kruger, Jean Letort

Composer: Jean-François Zygel (2008)

Cast: Pierre Alcover, Marie Glory, Brigitte Helm, Henry Victor, Alfred Abel

Featuring a number of excellent performances – Alcover as an ill-dealing fat-cat, Glory as an angelic innocent, and Helm as a sexy femme fatale – L’Herbier’s visually arresting adaptation of Zola’s novel about fraud and deception in Parisian big business proves to be a gripping and unsettling work, which has had a great deal of influence on subsequent generations of film-makers. Iain.Stott