Fanny Lacroix

Hotel des Etudients (Student's Hotel) was the great Tourjansky's sole directorial contribution of 1932. The scene is a Parisian rooming house, catering to students of both sexes. The heroine has a brief affair with a handsome young man, emerging from the experience a little wiser and a lot sadder. Her reputation ruined, the girl seems destined for the oblivion of the streets. But the boy finally realizes the harm he's caused, and in the last few minutes of the film finally does the "right thing." The critical consensus was that the film might have been better had their been fewer fake "exterior" sets and more genuine location filming.

A problem forces a plane carrying passengers bound for the Far East to land on a desert island. Couples forms and they are happy. They are finally located, rescued and repatriated. A few months of 'civilization' are enough to pit them against each other. Then they decide to return to their paradise lost.

Based on a play by Pierre Wolff, about a wronged husband’s revenge on his wife and her lover, La belle de nuit is a major find, a work of uninhibited stylistic imagination that ranges from Sirkian stylization (an elaborate play of mirrors and doubles) to brutal realism (a tour of the bordellos of Marseille suggests the contemporary photographs of Brassaï).