There are surprisingly few movies dealing with a nonterrestrial afterlife. While there are hundreds of films dealing with the existence of individuals following death as embodied or disembodied spirits on earth, there are remarkably few that provide any glimpse of heaven. The few that do tend to present it as an inconceivably white, vast, and indistinct place, from HERE COMES MR. JORDAN to A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH to THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT. In contrast to these other films, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME stands out as one of the most intensely colorful, beautiful, and vividly concrete films in cinema history.

The cast of the film is strong, but it would be a mistake to imagine that they are the reason for the film's success. Robin Williams as Chris Nielsen, Cuba Gooding Jr., Rosalind Chao (who I previously mainly knew only from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION), Max von Sydow, and the lovely but underused (not only in this film, but by Hollywood in general) Annabella Sciorra all hand in wonderful performances, but they are largely overwhelmed by the astonishing beauty of the sets, the inconceivably vivid colors, and the marvelous use of light. No performers could have competed, though they try gamely.

I find the film especially interesting for theological reasons. Ron Bass based the screenplay on a novel by Richard Mattheson. I must confess to not knowing the work of either, but I would lay heavy money that one of them (probably Mattheson) knew well C. S. Lewis's THE GREAT DIVORCE. In that work Lewis was concerned to lay out a concept of heaven and hell that did not regard God as responsible for sending people to hell. Instead, he described an afterlife in which people in hell still had the option of leaving hell and departing for heaven. These two ideas--of people placing themselves in hell and of having the option to leave hell for heaven--drive the metaphysics of WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, as I'm sure anyone who has seen the film will recognize.

So why do I give the film only four stars after all the nice things I have said about it? Primarily because the film doesn't really have all that much of a story to tell. The plot feels like a short subject stretched to feature length film proportions. Once you subtract all the amazing visuals, there simply wasn't that much to the film. The challenge for the filmmakers was primarily padding out the action of the film. Nonetheless, I do recommend this as an interesting and intensely beautiful film, despite the slender narrative.

Interestingly, the title of the film comes from Hamlet's famous soliloquy, in which he ponders whether or not to commit suicide. In the end, he decides not to because of the dreams that the dead may dream, presumably worse for having killed oneself. But such dreams did not prevent Annie Nielsen in the film from committing suicide. It is a nice ironical touch.

THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT is a documentary version of the outstanding book by the same name by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons. Although the film starts by indicating that it is based on the book, this is only very loosely true. A great deal contained in the book is left out in the film, and the film contains a surprising amount of content that is not in the book. In the end, they complement one another marvelously.

The film begins with a shot of the United States Capitol with former Senator Dale Bumpers memorably defending Pres. Clinton during his impeachment trial. When he asks how it was that the president was being impeached for lying about what was merely a private wrongdoing the film cuts back to the earliest days of the Clinton administration, and goes through the various trumped up and absurd charges made against Clinton during the nineties, from Whitewater to the ridiculous charge of the murder of Vince Foster to Troopergate to the allegations of Paula Jones (which not even her lawyers believed). Like the book, the movie excells because it shows in great detail the lack of concern with truth that the Right displayed throughout all of this, and the extraorinarily organized and partisan nature of all the opposition to Clinton.

As an Arkansan, I especially appreciated the way in which the film explains the various Arkansas characters involved in the story. As a former student of Ouachita Baptist University, I knew Bob Riley (one of the finest and most fascinating individuals in Arkansas history, as highly decorated war hero, professor, and politician), whose widow is interviewed extensively in the film. I did not know Jim McDougal. His wife, Susan, emerges in the film as one of the great symbols of the affair, as she is crushed by Kenneth Starr's inhuman prosecution machine because she refuses to lie about either Bill Clinton or Hillary. Her dedication to truth is so great that she goes to prison (where she is housed with child murderers instead of the general prison population, by Starr's orders) rather than lie. She emerges as one of the few heroes in the tawdry persecution of Clinton, and one of the most innocent victims.

Like the book, this documentary is essential viewing for anyone wanting the understand the Clinton years. It is also a cautionary tale, because the Right wing machine that mindlessly and irrationally attack a moderate Democratic president in 1993 will unquestionably do the same with a new Democratic president in 2005. All Americans should find such politics of division reprehensible and utterly opposed to the commonweal.

Bob Hope was never truly a film comedian like Cary Grant or even Joel McCrea. He was primarily a radio personality who also appeared in a few films. For the most part, his later career was progressively weaker and weaker, and his celebrated series of Road Pictures with Bing Crosby were more notable for their spirit and energy than for much in the way of genuine humor. Indeed, of the famous comedians of the 20th century, Hope was one of the least funny. But for those who, like myself, do not count themselves among Hope's fans, there are two films that he made, both with Paulette Goddard, that are both remarkably entertaining and fun: THE CAT AND THE CANARY, released in 1939, and THE GHOST BREAKERS, released in 1940.

What made these two films so much more successful than those that followed? First and foremost, there is a balance between the rest of the film elements and Hope's strong screen personality. For many of us, a little Bob Hope goes a long way, and in small amounts can even be entertaining. Although shockingly few of his one liners are actually funny, he does possess a nice physical timing, a great energy level, and a pleasant persona. He was never more pleasant or well presented as in these two films. The balance was achieved partly by not focusing as much on Hope as in his later films, and partly by including a very strong supporting cast. The very beautiful Paulette Goddard adorned both THE CAT AND THE CANARY and THE GHOST BREAKERS (her marriage to Charlie Chaplain ending in between efforts), and this film included as well Paul Lukas, Richard Carlson, and a very young Anthony Quinn (and for once the Mexican Quinn--born Antonio Rudolfo Oaxaca Quinn in Mexico--gets to play an Hispanic). The sets are fun, the direction fast-paced and never dull, and while the one liners don't elicit many out and out laughs, they at least engender a spirit of enjoyment. I can imagine only the most curmudgeonly viewer not having fun with one.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the film is the role of Alex the manservant played by Willie Best, who along with other black actors such as Fred 'Snowflake' Toones played a host of frightened, illiterate, stupid, and lazy colored servants, red caps, and porters during the thirties and forties. In this film as well he is often fearful, frequently mangles his sentences, and is definitely subservient. Nonetheless, this is one of the most interesting of this kind of performance in any film I know from the era. Partly this is because you get the feeling that his character is far more intelligent than he at first lets on, and although he is often fearful, he always manages to get the better of his fear, and in fact intervenes physically more than once to help Hope when he is in danger. He and Hope seem more like companions the pure master and servant, and almost approximate Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Best does reinforce the stereotype in his role, but he comes very close to making something more of it. Sadly, it would remain one of the better roles for an African-American actor in a film mainly featuring white actors for some time (excepting several roles by the very talented and immensely dignified Rex Ingram, who is arguably the lone African American male who managed to completely shatter the stereotype in the 1940s, with several superb roles from THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD as the Genie, to Jim in HUCKLEBERRY FINN, to Da Lawd in GREEN PASTURES, to Lucifer in CABIN IN THE SKY, to Sgt. Tambul in SAHARA).

The DVD has a number of excellent features, including excerpts from some of Hope's USO tours (Hope was, of course, one of the foremost entertainers of U.S. troops in WW II, perhaps surpassed only by Marlene Dietrich, whose efforts were truly heroic, with her actually living with and entertaining troops in the front lines while the invasion of Germany pushed forward)

All in all, this was a very enjoyable film that will show Bob Hope at his very best.

The title of WHAT WOULD BUFF DO?: THE VAMPIRE SLAYER AS SPIRITUAL GUIDE makes it obvious that the author is trying to do two things: first, she is going to discuss BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and its spin off ANGEL to a considerable extent and second, she is going to do this in such as way as to provide spiritual guidance. I give the book a five star rating, but I have to point out that it is based entirely on the way it succeeds in the first of these two tasks. I consider this to be the finest single-author analysis of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER that has yet been published, but I did not find it to be especially useful in the second of its goals, of providing spiritual guidance.

Initially I read this book simply because I am a huge BUFFY and ANGEL fan, and am a bit of a completist: I'll read just about any halfway decent discussion of BUFFY. Because of the author's desire to make Buffy into a spiritual role model, I approached the book with considerable suspicion. (For the sake of honesty, I should point out that I do have two theological degrees and did extensive graduate work on the religious thought of Kierkegaard, and still consider myself to be that rarest of creatures, a politically and socially leftist Southern Baptist, so I'm not in the least antithetical to religious ideas.) However, as I started working through Jana Riess's discussions of the various characters in Buffy and some of the themes, I was astonished at how often I found myself in agreement with her, or how she would mention some aspect of the show and I would immediately call to mind another instance that was compatible with what she said, only to have her bring that specific instance up in her book.

I think this book will delight any fan of BUFFY or ANGEL. Riess has a profound understanding of the show and really grasps the dynamics of all the major characters. I learned a great deal about many aspects of the show, and gained insights that I had previously missed. For instance, I had not recognized that Warren, one of the villainous nerds from Season Six, truly had become the super villains he admired in comic books. Or when I read "BUFFY is less about the cycle of one's own sin and salvation than it is about saving others; it is always outwardly, and not inwardly, focused," I realized that that was precisely true about the show.

I was far less convinced by the book's attempt to set Buffy up as a spiritual guide. Perhaps this was just me. My spiritual guides have been people like Kierkegaard, Henry David Thoreau, Montaigne, Wittgenstein, Dostoevsky, and Samuel Johnson. I have never profited much from popular spiritual writers, whether pseudo-intellectuals like Joseph Campbell or spiritual writers like Philip Yancey. They fail to speak to the kind of spiritual struggle that I have been engaged in. It may well be that others will find this part of the book more compelling, but I have to be honest and say that I do not believe that any part of the spiritual guide part of the book left any impact on me.

Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book for any fan of BUFFY. The discussion of the show is as good as we have seen before, and the character and season guides at the back are absolutely superb. On top of all this, the book contains a marvelous interview the author conducted with Eliza Dushku, who played, of course, the rogue slayer Faith in both BUFFY and ANGEL.

Let's face it: some of the great classics are a chore to read. PILGRIM'S PROGRESS and ROBINSON CRUSOE are not exactly page turners. Even Dante and Shakespeare, as rewarding as they can be, are not always easy to read. But DON QUIXOTE is that rare classic that is both utterly delightful and extraordinarily easy to read. Like all classics, the more effort you put into understanding this great book the more your efforts are rewarding, but what amazes me about Cervantes's masterpiece is how amazingly effortless reading it is. It is not at all misleading to describe the volume as a page turner.

DON QUIXOTE is such a marvelously complex and rich book that everyone's reading of the novel will be unique. My delight in the book stems from two main sources. First is Cervantes's miraculous gift as a storyteller. Although the novel is without any possible question one of the four or five most influential works of literature in history, every chapter seems eternally fresh and enchanting. Everyone knows at least something about the book, usually about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and the incident of the windmills, and many imagine that from this they have some notion of what the novel is like. But these impressions rarely hint at Cervantes's genius as a spinner of tales, of his playfulness, of his acute sense of humor, his originality, and his inventiveness. Though we like to imagine that we "know" Don Quixote, Cervantes manages to surprise the reader on nearly every page. He is especially delightful in the second half of the novel, published several years after the first part, which allows Cervantes to depict Quixote and Sancho as famous celebrities because of the success of the first half. Whereas in the first half they labored in obscurity, in the second half they reign as celebrities. Cervantes also jousts with the real life author of an unauthorized second half to DON QUIXOTE.

Second, I find the novel delightful for the richness and brilliance of the two central characters. Don Quixote is a character about whom it is possible to say many true things, without thereby exhausting what it is possible to say. He is insane-and despite 20th and 21st century attempts to celebrate this as an attempt to condemn the insanity of society of a whole and assert an alternative form of rationality, we are not intended to admire his insanity. This is not CATCH-22. Rather, Cervantes sees Quixote's insanity as an affliction. In terms of early 17th century psychology, Quixote goes insane from a drying up of the brain induced by staying up too many nights reading books on chivalry (it was thought at the time that the brain gradually dried up while staying awake and remoisturized at night while asleep). Many of Quixote's moments of greatest folly occur after nights spent without sleep, and his sanity at the end of the book is restored after finally managing to sleep for several hours. Despite this (though not because of it), Quixote is a lovable and admirable character. We hurt for him, but we admire his genuine physical courage, his high moral principles, his devotion to his cause, and his powerful sense of justice. Equally delightful is Sancho Panza, who seems incapable of uttering anything without it being imbued with unintentional humor. Indeed, many of my favorite parts of the book are those where Sancho simply starts talking. The two, of course, enjoy a host of "adventures," but these are mainly just excuses to provide settings for Quixote and Sancho to shine. As readers we care less about their next adventures than for the opportunity and privilege of spending time in their company.

One commentator in the documentary on Terry Gilliam's failed attempt to film DON QUIXOTE correctly points out that the more we see Don Quixote suffer under his insanity, the more we come to care for and love him. This is a profound truth. No matter how delusional he becomes, we want things to end well for him, but worry that perhaps his madness has gone too far, and indeed if there is a tragic moment in the book it is when he returns home to his village defeated.

This is truly one of the great books every written, and of all the classics, one of the most readable and loveable.

Gustave Doré was a frustrated painter. Forced by circumstance to produce illustration illustrations for a number of literary works, he primarily longed for fame and success as a painter. But while shooting for fame as a painter, he inadvertently achieved immortality as arguably the greatest illustrator in history.

Most illustrators of the classics fall far short of the efforts of the works they are asked to illustrate, but Doré almost always managed to eerily echo visually the genius of the original authors. After reading the first half of DON QUIXOTE, I discovered this Dover collection of Doré's illustrations of the work, and I found them to be completely stunning. Doré had a genius for precisely visualizing events in the novel and transferring them precisely into his illustrations. No scene is too much of a challenge to him. The famous moment when Don Quixote attacks the windmills, mistaking them as giants, is depicted brilliantly by Doré. Every famous scene and many less famous scenes are all depicted, and I can honestly say that not once does Doré disappoint me in his imaging of how the scene occurred. One can, if one wants, make minor quibbles with Doré, such as his drawing Quixote wearing the wash basin helmet even in section later in the novel where he is said to have worn a sallet helmet. But this truly would be mere quibbling, for throughout Doré perfectly captures the spirit of DON QUIXOTE.

I'm convinced that this collection of illustrations is not nearly as well known as it deserves to be. Graphic novels are an extremely popular genre today, and it is impossible to imagine anyone interested in the visual aspects of those stories not being fascinated by Doré's far more complex and classically organized illustrations. Likewise, no one interested in graphic art or the history of art could not find these less than riveting. Most of all, anyone who loves DON QUIXOTE will adore these drawings, and to work through the various illustrations is to relive all the glorious events of the novel once again. Indeed, one could almost argue that while other translators have managed with more or less success to translate Cervantes's masterpiece into English or German or French, Doré managed to translate the novel into a purely visual language.

First and foremost, this is a political novel. Of course, there is a sense in which any novel is a political novel, in that it reflects to some degree the social and political situation in which it was produced. But THE CARLOS CHADWICK MYSTERY is political in the sense that it seeks to examine predominant American political attitudes in a fictional context. Subtract the political elements from this novel, and you are left with no novel at all. Although a common genre in Europe and Latin America, it is comparatively rare in the United States and Britain, much to the impoverishment of our literature.

The novel tells the story of how Charlie Chadwick, born, raised, and educated in Venezuela by an American father and Venezuelan mother, attends his father's alma mater, the exclusive, elitist Richards College, and is transformed from a lightly political individual to a passionate leftist and possible terrorist who insists on being called Carlos. The text consists of three main sections: an account of his life by a very slightly to the left mainstream print journalist, a self-absorbed memoir by Carlos's bright but not-very-profound ex-girlfriend, and a highly political play written by Carlos. The narrative is situated roughly in the very late 1960s early 1970s, but in a somewhat alternative universe than the one that we remember. For instance, the primary American military intervention is in Peru, and the student protest in the book revolves around this rather than Vietnam. This has the effect of forcing us to reconsider the issues in a slightly different context, an alternative history more effectively exposing the inner logic of actual history. Anyone objecting that the U.S. would never invade or bomb Peru needs to look a bit more deeply at the depth of prior American involvement in Latin America and should recall that in the 1980s we actually did invade Latin American countries on more than one occasion.

The novel contains a wealth of provocative and interesting ideas, and anyone willing to take the book on its own terms will undoubtedly find it a fascinating read. One seeking a mere narrative might look elsewhere. The ideas in the first two sections of the novel are more subdued than in the final section, and consist primarily in the political naiveté of the journalist and the former girlfriend. In fact, although the novel is subtitled "A Novel of College Life and Political Terror," I could not keep from thinking that the real issue was not terror but naiveté. For instance, both fail to perceive the deeply entrenched ideology permeating liberal capitalist society ("liberal" I mean in the broad nonpartisan sense of the broad consensus that informs all of American life; by this standard Ronald Reagan is a paradigmatic liberal). The girlfriend writes, "I believe strongly in America's system of pragmatic, nonideological problem solving," a sentence that that embraces more than one naiveté. It is in the final section of the book, "Perspective Industries, LTD.," that the political issues are raised most sharply. In reading this section, I kept being reminded of Guy Debord and his SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE. I do not know that there is a direct connection, but many of the ideas there had parallels in Debord and other French thinkers and writers from the late 1960s. The content is too rich and the space here too limited to do more than say that in this section the sophism inherent in capitalism is brought to the fore. We speak lightly sometimes of the "marketplace of ideas," but here the "market" aspect is taken more strictly than usual. The argument is that there is a relativism deeply inherent in capitalism that most do not chose to see.

There is a very real sense in which the mystery that is Carlos Chadwick is never resolved. He becomes a leftist during a year spent studying in Paris, but also after a painful break up with his girlfriend and a period of time in which he is ostracized by schoolmates for speaking out against the sexual harassment of several women by a group of men. Carlos's conversion to the left is rapid and dramatic and extreme, but one suspects that there is both an intellectual and emotional component to this. His ideas are well thought out and insightful, but one wonders what role his interpersonal experiences played in all this. That they played some role seems obvious from things he says to his ex-girlfriend upon his return to college after his year in France. But the other mystery is the mystery that Carlos is to the journalist and the former girlfriend due to the sharply delimited nature of their worldview. In the end, I found Carlos's ideas quite congenial, but it didn't keep me from wondering what alchemy of emotional need and intellectual deliberation resulted in his political conversion.

I highly recommend this so anyone who enjoys reading novels of ideas or political discussion. It is especially relevant today in the first decade of the new century, when a corporate-owned media whose independence is sharply delimited by the values and economic needs of its investors is absurdly taken as "liberal," and on top of that not recognizing that being liberal and being leftist are hardly equivalent. In this regard, the novel speaks to today's issues perhaps even more sharply than when he was first published.

Dorling Kindersley has in the past twenty years quickly established itself as an outstanding publisher of niche books--children's reference books, travel guides, atlases, and the such. What I find so remarkable about a number of their children's books is how enormously satisfying they are for adults as well, even adults who are fairly familiar with the subject matter. One of the better series of books in their impressive list are the Cross-Sections books by Stephen Biesty. As someone who is interested both in the history of ships and the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian, I find this one even more interesting than most.

Two things stand out about this book: its remarkably detailed drawings and the enormous amount of information that gets stuffed into the book's relatively short length. This book provides a pictorial rendering of one of the great ships of the line of the Napoleonic navy, similar to H.M.S. Victory. Virtually nothing gets left out, and the book can actually serve as a surprisingly comprehensive introduction to the Royal British Navy during the time of Nelson and Napoleon. It is somewhat misleading in that the ship depicted was the exception and not the norm, the British navy possessing only a handful of ships this size. Apart from that the book has no serious flaws, except for the unaffordable one in a visual guide that it is sometimes hard to locate information in its closely packed pages.

I would also recommend another Dorling Kindersley book, also unfortunately out of print, THE VISUAL DICTIONARY OF SHIPS AND SAILING. It does a bit better job than this one of defining many nautical terms. Each represents a marvelous addition to personal library of books on the age of the sailing ship.

This marvlous film unites the talents of two of the greatest English comedians of the forties and fifties (Guinness more or less ceased doing comedy in the sixties on): Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. Guinness is, of course, one of the most famous and distinguished actors of the past half century, but Holloway is primarily known in the United States for a single role, though by no means his most representative, that of Alfred P. Doolittle in the film version of MY FAIR LADY. In this film we see him at his more typical, more akin to his performances in movies like PASSPORT TO PIMPLICO and BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Guinness, who was so versatile that he had no particular role that was typical of him, shines as a long suffering, faithful bank clerk of whom the old expression "still waters run deep" is especially true. Behind his nonexpressive, stoic face is the soul of a thief who intends to rob the bank of a small fortune. Holloway plays the owner of a very small company that makes tourist trinkets for souvenir shops. They team up to form the Lavender Hill Mob (named for the address of the boarding house in which they both live).

As in so many movies, it isn't the getting there but the going there that's good. The plot takes a definite second place to the performances of the leads. One of my major complaints with Guinness is that the further he went in his career, the more he foresook comedy for drama. He was a subtle and brilliant commedian who excelled in subdued performances. Guinness could get more mileage out of a sly grin and his eyes than most actors can in their entire body. Holloway, on the other hand, is the master of broad comedy: exaggerated facial expressions, horrified poses, distraught reactions. Together they balance one another out perfectly. In scenes like their frantic and futile dash down the steps of the Eiffel Tower they are used to perfection.

Ealing Studios made a string of utterly superb comedies in the 1940s and 1950s, and this is one of my favorites. I actually prefer this to the deeply cynical and dark KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, and consider it on any grounds to be superior to THE LADYKILLERS (oddly marred by Guinness's inexplicable impersonation of Alastair Sim, down to false teeth, body padding, and a hair-do that mimicked Sims's--when you go that far, why not just hire Sim instead?), and an honorable companion to films such as PASSPORT TO PIMPLICO, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT, and THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT).

Audrey Hepburn had a number of walk on roles in British films in the very early 1950s, but didn't achieve real success until her stage work brought her to the attention of Hollywood. She is easily spotted in a bit role in this one, as the radiantly beautiful woman who stops to say hello to Guinness in the opening scene of the film.

It is amazing how quickly some directors mastered sound film almost immediately. Both Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood and Rene Clair in France adapted to the sound film apparently without effort, and produced some of the earliest masterpieces in their respected countries. Their strategies, however, differed slightly. While Lubitsch employed microphones from beginning to end, Clair, much like Hitchcock in Great Britain with his earliest sound features, blended silent and sound techniques. In UNDER THE ROOFS OF PARIS, Clair has essentially produced a silent film with numerous talking sequences, usually relatively static scenes with conversation and singing. The reason for this was primarily the incapacity of the earliest microphones to accommodate much music. Clair is so masterful in his use of the camera, however, that he makes a virtue out of necessity, and one can only notice the silent nature of much of the film if one looks for it.

Anyone familiar with the work of Andrew Sarris knows that Clair, like Lubitsch and Hitchcock, is placed in his "Pantheon' of the greatest auteurs in the history of film, and one can easily believe it watching this remarkable film. While many early sound directors saw sound as a gimmick, Clair saw it as an opportunity to expand the capacity of film to tell a story.

The story is not like anything that would have been told in Hollywood. The story is boy meets girl, boy kinda gets girl, boy loses girl, and the girl stays lost. A note of danger and sadness underscores the entire movie, despite the sharp humor and song. Albert, a young man who makes his living by selling sheet music in the street, falls deeply in love with Pola, whom he rescues from a petty gangster. While in jail, his best friend befriends Pola, and she falls in love with him. The contrast between Albert, who loves with great constancy, and Pola, who throws her affection from the gangster to Albert to his friend Louis with little or not transition, could not be greater. In the end, while one regrets for Albert's sake that he does not end up with the girl he loves, one cannot help but think that he can do better. Interestingly, Albert is played by Albert Préjean and Pola, who is supposed to be Romanian, is played by Pola Illéry, who was indeed Romanian.

I can't stress enough how enjoyable this film is. Seventy-four years later, the viewer doesn't have to cut this film the tiniest bit of slack to love it. It isn't an artifact, but a vibrant, adorable excursion into the Parisian underworld of 1930. It was not merely one of the first great French sound films made, but one of the great musicals of all time.