ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

david-sarkies It is so interesting looking at this movie and the movie below, The Castle. There is simply a huge contrast in them. Casque D'or is a tragic French Movie while the Castle is an Aussie battler movie where the good bloke comes through against all of this odds. The Castle is something designed to appeal to the average Australian who likes the D-Generation, where as Casque D'or is designed to appeal to the more intellectual audiences and those that want a portrayal of a bleak world in which love that exists is brutally extinguished.Manda, a carpenter who has just been released from gaol arrives in a town that is dominated by a mafia style organisation. He is a tough guy and won't allow himself to be pushed around. As soon as he arrives he catches the eye of Marie who cannot turn away from him. In the first scene where she is dancing with her boyfriend, her face is solidly facing him and does not change even though they are fluidly moving across the dance floor. Even though it is love at first sight, it is a love that is not allowed.Marie is considered to be little more than a whore. She lives with prostitutes and she works from the crimelord of the town. Her boyfriend is a gutless wimp who dies in a knife fight that the crimelord organises between him and Manda. This fight doesn't brush over for even though the town is ruled by the crime lord, murder is still illegal, except that the crimelord uses it to get his own way, that is Marie.Manda is a noble character who fights not only for Marie's honour, but also for the honour of his friend who he works for. His friend is set up for the murder but Manda knows the truth and cannot let it be pushed aside. He also knows that it is the crimelord that set everything up. Though people say that love conquers all, human love, especially in this movie, does not. His love for Marie does not mean that everything is going to turn out all right. A murder has been orchestrated and justice must be done, even if it is by the hands of Manda. Beyond this, the law cannot allow a rogue vigilante run around uncontrolled. Even though he guns down the crimelord, he still must pay for his crime, which he does. We know that this movie is going to end tragically, we see that through the movie the love between Manda and Marie is constantly held apart and that it is never going to be a happy ending, which is what I like.

Terrell-4 This is Belle Époque Paris, which can be a dangerous world where there are few second chances, and none for lovers. Innocence seems to have been long ago wrung out of Marie (Simone Signoret). She's a prostitute and the bought woman of Roland, a handsome, arrogant member of Felix Leca's gang, a group of bullyboy thieves, pimps and murderers. Leca (Claude Dauphin) combines slyness, danger and oiliness in equal measure. Leca wants Marie, and on his terms. She's beautiful in a coarse and knowing way, with a swagger and a hand on her hip, a gangster's girl who takes being slapped as part of the life. When Marie meets Georges Manda, "Jo" (Serge Reggiani), a man who had been part of the life, had served time and now is a carpenter, everything changes. In the dance at the start of the movie, with the gangsters in their tight suits, their women in flouncy gowns and ribbons, cheap waltzes playing, beer and wine on the tables, Marie sees Jo, likes him and flirts. For Jo, he can't take his eyes off her. The music plays on, they dance. The next day Marie sets out to see Jo at his carpenter's shop. Her feelings deepen in some inexplicable way. Marie regains a measure of innocence with Jo and we watch this happen. Jo will do anything to protect her. Marie will do anything to protect Jo. Leca, always there, is determined to have his way. What first appears to be a turn-of-the-century tale about gangsters and their women turns seamlessly and with foreboding into a hopeless and emotional love story. When we last see Marie I started to choke up. Does Casque d'Or, the story of Marie and Jo, reach the level of tragedy? Probably not, but it will do. Jacques Becker, the director, didn't make many movies. He was 54 when he died. Criterion has released two. Both are excellent. Le Trou is a tough, nerve-wracking and ironic tale of several prisoners who attempt to dig their way to freedom. Touchez Pas au Grisbi is a gangster film, but even more a view of what middle age will do to us, even gangsters. You won't know whether to smile or just shake your head when Jean Gabin has to reach for his glasses to read a phone number. It also is somehow pleasantly satisfying to recall Signoret and Reggiani four years earlier in the opening and closing sequences of La Ronde, she the prostitute who loses her heart and he the soldier who quickly forgets her.

Howard Schumann After being released from prison where he served five years for an undisclosed crime, Georges Manda (Serge Reggiani), a soft-looking, taciturn man with a handlebar moustache, becomes a hard working carpenter, determined to go straight. When Raymond (Raymond Bussieres), a fellow gang member with whom he served time in prison, introduces him to Marie (Simone Signoret) at a dance, however, the solid foundation he was trying to build begins to come unglued. Signoret, one of the classiest and most elegant actresses, is strikingly irresistible as the moll of a suave gang leader in Jacques Becker's 1952 masterpiece Casque D'or. Considered a failure when it first opened but, after receiving critical acclaim in New York, the film developed a wider audience in France and has now become a classic, newly restored on a Criterion DVD.Set in Paris in the 1890s and based on actual police accounts, Casque D'or is not an arid period piece or costume drama, but a rich, vibrant, and lovingly evocative work that successfully recreates the ambiance of Paris at the turn of the century. Unlike Melville's Le Samourai which was filmed in near darkness to capture the sullen milieu of the underworld, Becker bathes his film in a dazzling poetic light that belies the darkness of its theme and some scenes have been compared to an impressionist painting. Marie is being "kept" by Roland (William Sabatier), a volatile and jealous dandy and is also sought after by the crime boss Felix Leca (Claude Dauphin). Manda and Marie fall in love but soon Manda runs afoul of the law after killing the jealous Roland in a fight. Leca seizes on this opportunity to remove Manda from the picture by framing his closest friend but doesn't count on Manda's dedication to doing what is right.Despite being about the criminal element, there is little violence in Casque D'or and it is more of an moody romance than a crime drama, perhaps accounting for its initial failure at the box office. The most brilliantly realized sequence takes place at a countryside retreat where Manda and Marie go for a few hours of happiness together before the inevitable denouement. Casque D'or is a film about friendship, loyalty, and, most of all, about passion and its consequences. When Marie hears wedding bells and drags Manda into a church, all he can say is "not now", but his expression suggests that he knows that their love will be a dream that fades into dawn.

dbdumonteil In a poll in 1979 ,Becker's chef d'oeuvre was part of the top ten of the best French movies of all time.It's arguably Becker's best work;he achieved a luminous movie with many unforgettable scenes : -the small boats on the river,and the pack arriving at the guinguettes,those cafes down by the river Seine which are no longer part of the landscapes.(remember Duvivier's "la belle équipe" ,1936) -all the scenes in the country where the nature seems to protect the lovers as a mother would do.Most of all,this admirable sequence when Reggiani 's sleeping :he opens his eyes and Marie's luminous beauty moves him deeply -never a director filmed Signoret as Becker did- -The scene which climaxes the opus is the one in the church.They hear the whole congregation sing the "Kyrie " in a tiny church:there's a wedding there.So Marie urges Manda to come in and they attend the ceremony.When they leave ,they learn tragic news.Now the bell is tolling for them,even if these are wedding bells.-The final scenes between Reggiani/Manda and his old pal Bussières /Raymond display Becker's love of loyalty,manly friendship ,a subject which would come back in later works ,muted in "touchez pas au grisbi" and became an absolute pessimism in "le trou" where nobody could be trusted anymore.-The score which Becker used in the last sequences is none other than the old French folk song "le temps des cerises" actually an organizing song,a revolutionary song ,since it was the anthem of the Commune in 1871."Casque d'or" is one of the jewels of the French cinema.Becker used to like the Apaches (=ruffians) ,the outcast,cause he would transfer Leblanc's Arsene Lupin adventures to the screen in 1957.A failed attempt though.But "Casque d'or" generally looked upon as Becker's peak ,hasn't aged a bit.