Cast: Dita Parlo, Armand Bour, Pierre De Guingand, Ginette Maddie, Germain Rouer, Nadia Sibirskaïa, Fabien Haziza, Adolphe Candé, Mireille Barsac. Screenplay: Noël Renard, based on a novel by Émile Zola. Cinematography: André Dantan, René Guichard, Émile Pierre, Armand Thirard. Production design: Christian-Jaque, Fernand Delattre.
With its spectacular set design, lively action sequences, and compelling montage, Julien Duvivier's Ladies' Paradise is an entertaining film about the devastating effect of big business on a small shopowner, like Wal-Mart obliterating a Mom-and-Pop store or Amazon steamrolling the corner bookshop. But surprisingly, the film winds up celebrating the capitalist behemoth it initially seems to cast in the role of villain. Which is an irony in itself, since it was one of the last movies to be made before the avalanche of sound doomed silent films to the oblivion that M. Baudu's little fabric shop experiences with the arrival of the giant department store called Au Bonheur des Dames, the original French title.
