Under the Roofs of Paris

René Clair, Films Sonores Tobis, Epinay, 1930. Albert (Albert Préjean), a street singer, and Pola (Pola Illéry) live under zinc roofs; a thief (Gaston Modot as Fred) complicates the courtship. Clair had a whole street built so the camera could travel from garret to cobbles. He treats sound as a gag and a distance: a song that will not stay in one room, a fight heard more than seen. One of the first French features designed for sound rather than retrofitted. The roofs are a set, and they look like Paris anyway.