Pépé le Moko

Early French crime/noir flick. I wish I could say the French hadn't fallen for the same trap when switching to talkies, but endless dialogue slows the film down unnecessarily. It's nice that they spent a lot of time cleaning up the visuals, it sure looks polished for a film from the 30s, but what good is it when the cinematography isn't all that special?

The plot and characters aren't that interesting, but that goes for most crime films. Pépé le Moko is a well-known criminal, someone the police have been chasing for ages. They can't get their hands on the man, charming women are his only known weakness. And so that's what they try to exploit.

The characters are pretty bland, and so are the dialogues and the plot. Stylistically it's also pretty basic, but that's quite common for films from the '30s. Unless you're a big fan of classic criminal stories it's hard to imagine the appeal of something like this, I can't say I w was very impressed.