Le P'tit Parigot [The Little Parisian] 1. Première partie

René Le Somptier: Le P'tit Parigot: 1. Première partie (FR 1926). Lizica Codreanu in a Pierrot Éclair costume designed by Sonia Delaunay. (La bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris)

(FR 1926)

    6 episodes:
1. Première partie; 103 min
2. La belle inconnue; 45 min
3. Le Complot; 46 min
4. Le Mystère du Val d’Enfer; 46 min
5. Zarka la sorcière; 45 min
6. La Loi des jeunes; 41 min

    dir: René Le Somptier. scen: Paul Cartoux, Henri Decoin. photog: Léon Morizet, Henri Barreyre. des: Robert Mallet-Stevens, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay. cost: Sonia Delaunay, Philippe Gaston (dresses for Mmes. Bosky, Christy, MarieLaurent), Camille (Biscot’s clothes). 

    cast: [Georges] Biscot (Georges Grigny-Latour, “le P’tit Parigot”, rugby captain), Marquisette Bosky (Lucy Mesnil), Georges Melchior (Robert de Monterval), Suzanne Christy (Suzanne Grigny-Latour), Henri-Amédée Charpentier (Paul Mesnil), Jeanne Marie-Laurent (Jeanne Grigny-Latour), Bouboule (Louisette Mesnil), André Dubosc (Anicet Grigny-Latour, Georges’s father), Lionel Salem (Napoléon III), Bernand Billard (Simon), Suzanne Wurtz (Betty), Pauline Carton (Aunt Prudence), Émile Vervet (executioner), Gabrielle Rosny (Sidonie Cazoules), Violette Napierska (Gilberte d’Aragon), Suzanne Lenglen (herself, tennis champion), Marcelle Rahna (the dancer), Georges Pelletier-Doisy (himself, aviator), Marcel Achard (young writer), Yves Du Manoir (himself, rugby player), Frantz Reichel (himself, sportsman, journalist). 

    prod: Les Films Luminor. dist: Les Etablissements Jacques Haïk (Paris) / Pathé Consortium Cinéma. rel: 8.10.1926. copy: 35 mm, 6800 m, 103' (ep. 1) + 45' (ep. 2) + 46' (ep. 3) + 46' (ep. 4) + 45' (ep. 5) + 41' (ep. 6) (24 fps); titles: FRA. 

    source: CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, Bois d’Arcy

    Grand piano: Mauro Colombis.

    Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Sonia Delaunay, 8 Oct 2023

Hilde D’haeyere, Steven Jacobs (GCM 2023): " Director René Le Somptier’s Le P’tit Parigot is a serial in six episodes, the first of which premiered in Paris on 8 October 1926. The rights were sold to the evening paper L’Intransigeant, which paralleled each episode with a newspaper adaptation of the story. A mystery thriller in the tradition of a film à suivre, with cliffhangers as well as comic and melodramatic interludes, Le P’tit Parigot tells the story of “the little Parisian” (Georges Biscot), captain of the French rugby team, whose millionaire intellectual father hates sports, urging his son to pursue a “proper” career. In line with the subjects of some Robert Delaunay paintings, the sports theme is developed in cameo appearances by celebrity athletes, including rugby player Yves Du Manoir, swimmer Suzanne Wurtz, aviator Georges Pelletier d’Oisy, and tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen. "

" In the first three episodes of the serial, Biscot attempts to arrive in Paris in time to participate in a rugby match between France and Wales. In the later episodes he becomes the victim of a far-fetched plot involving the abduction of his girlfriend Lucy. "

" Sonia Delaunay provided the costumes and textile design for the female lead, Gilberte d’Aragon, played by German actress Violetta Napierska, who is involved in the kidnapping plot, and for her large entourage of fashionable guests. In a few key scenes, D’Aragon is throwing a very elegant party, which a title card describes as “une soirée extrêmement parisienne” (“an extremely Parisian evening”). "

" According to the opening credits, the interior sets of her lavish Art Deco mansion were designed by “[Robert] Delaunay.” At the center of the elegant home is a huge ballroom with a cozy boudoir corner and a balcony, as well as adjacent rooms such as a bathroom, a kitchen, and a gym with a ladder leading to the roof with a view of the Eiffel Tower – the famous landmark that also features in many Robert Delaunay paintings, including La Ville de Paris, la femme et la Tour Eiffel (1925), which decorates the set, in the company of his Les Coureurs (1925), and works by André Lhote and Albert Gleizes. The concentric circles that cloud the top of the Eiffel tower in Delaunay’s painting mirror Sonia Delaunay’s first Disque painting (1912), a large work of concentric interlocking circles which also overlooks the huge ballroom. "

" Circles, however, not only appear on the (rectangular) canvases, they also spring from the walls and ceiling – evoking abstract flowers in vases with concentric designs – in the form of light

fixtures and a huge chandelier with four tiers of discs. All of these pieces are components in a Gesamtkunstwerk that also includes elaborate drapes, hangings, and pillow covers with interlocking

discs and dazzling zigzag patterns designed by Sonia Delaunay. In this all-art environment, Napierska’s character, a stately schemer, parades at least six different outfits: a party dress, a dressing gown, three day dresses, and a coat with matching hat. The party dress resembles the herringbone design featured in L’Elélégance, while the coat is similar to the Simultaneous coat Delaunay designed for actress Gloria Swanson in 1923-24. The housemaid and some high-profile party guests, including the “P’tit Parigot” himself, are outfitted in eye-catching costumes of equally modernist styles, crossing boundaries of social class and narrative importance. Clearly, these modern items of attire, works of modern art, and the modernist design of the mansion serve to evoke a world imbued with industrial modernity, pictured in impressive footage of urban crowds, jazz bands, sporting events, and mechanized modes of transportation, including trains, boats, bicycles, cars, race cars, motorcycles, and airplanes. Strikingly, when Napierska’s character, dressed in a Sonia Delaunay day dress with a matching coat and hat, reappears in later scenes, she is paired with cars, and hence with the wheels and circles that embody modernity’s dynamic movement. "

" However, in the film, the multi-art environment of Delaunay’s designs acts primarily as a showstopping element, an attraction at the expense of narrative propulsion. As soon as the action shifts to Napierska’s mansion, the story comes to a halt. Characters take statuesque poses, inviting the careful inspection of their dress; groups of people are blocked in harmonic, frontal compositions of patterns and costumes in a static mise-en-scène reminiscent of tableaux in early cinema. A series of close-ups directs the viewer’s eye to a world of assorted objects, a matching hat, a jewelry detail… Instead of advancing the narrative, Delaunay and Le Somptier draw attention to the abundance of geometric patterns and shapes, advertising the latest in modern design, and whetting consumer appetite. "

" The long soirée scene in Le P’tit Parigot almost functions as a fashion reel within the larger narrative of the serial. Costumes and textiles become performative spectacles, explicitly so in the showcase dance of the Pierrot-Éclair, wearing a jumpsuit costume with zigzag-design “lightning” leggings and a disc-shaped collar, or the veil dance, seen through a diaphanous drape in front of a zigzag-patterned curtain. While Robert and Sonia Delaunay evoked movement and rhythm by means of static forms and colors in their paintings, their contributions to film suggest an equal fascination for stasis: the use of tableaux in the mise-en-scène, the ubiquitous presence of modernist artworks, and the presentation of textile and costume displays that stall the action. At most, these interludes are characterized by pictorial rather than cinematic movement. Like the background of the rotating gray-scale disc behind the model in L’Elélégance, or the opening and closing elevator doors in the nightclub in Le Vertige, the dazzling arrangement of geometric patterns on fabrics, costumes, curtains, and props in the “cozy corner” of Le P’tit Parigot, are jaw-dropping two-dimensional displays in a state of narrative rest, rather than dramatic actions that fuel the narrative. The dynamics in the film are first and foremost achieved by the juxtaposition of patterns within the mise-en-scène, rather than through energetic camerawork or editing. " Hilde D’haeyere, Steven Jacobs

AA: I watch the first 40 minutes of the Le P'tit Parigot serial. Played by Biscot = Georges Biscot, "Le P'tit Parigot" is Georges Brigny-Latour, a national hero, a media celebrity, a big rugby star and the captain of Équipe de France.

The serial starts in comedy mode, dramatizing the generation gap and the generation competition. Georges is the scion of an illustrious family that has been prominent in the history of France for generations. 

The rugby hero's huge popularity and media presence is turning insufferable for the pater familias, Anicet Grigny-Latour (André Dubosc), an austere and authoritarian figure.

The pressure at home keeps growing, and since Georges is forbidden to install a gym in his room, he camoflages the equipment ingeniously in the furniture. His morning exercise turns into a funny and original comedy sequence in which the young man unveils one piece of equipment after another.

An invitation to a dinner in the presence of Suzanne Lenglen the Olympic tennis champion (who appears in person) gives Georges an excuse to escape the suffocating atmosphere at home. 

After dinner at the restaurant there is a fabulous spectacle with Lizica Codreanu dancing in Sonia Delaunay's Pierrot Éclair costume seen in the poster art of this year's Le Giornate. The evening continues in Salome mode: female dancers appear first in striking Art Deco costumes designed by the Delaunay couple, then topless, and finally au naturel in the pool.

The Queen of the Racket beats the Captain of the French Team in table tennis. At home, the battle of the generations keeps escalating. Here is where I left Teatro Verdi.

Le P'tit Parigot seems to be a fun serial, and its main attraction and selection criterium for the festival is the design. Unfortunately, the print on display is duped and fails to do justice to the visual design. Nor is it possible to appreciate sufficiently the performances, because facial features remain blurred, and the pantomime can be enjoyed in broad outline only.