Raymond Bernard's version of this oft-filmed novel is one of the most highly regarded, but has been little seen in the U.S. since its original release here in the Thirties. Harry Baur is featured as Jean Valjean. (“Baur is an actor with gross features, beady eyes, shaggy brows, a shambling walk and alarming girth.... (His) Jean Valjean must overcome repugnance to win your (sympathy), and that he does, utterly....”--N.Y. Times) Charles Vanel (who, now in his eighties, recently appeared in Three Brothers) is Inspector Javert, Valjean's nemesis. In addition to being stylistically daring--approaching expressionism in its lighting and mise-en-scène--Les Misérables is set to an original score by composer Arthur Honegger, arranged and conducted by Maurice Jaubert, the greatest prewar film music conductor (killed on the front in 1940).
“The challenge of charting the story of escaped convict Jean Valjean through the historical background of the struggle for a Republic, culminating in the 1832 Revolt in Paris, should not be underestimated. Jean Valjean, who moves from outlaw destitution to wealth and respect three times in the course of the roller-coaster plot, is a figure so much bigger than life, in a tale of a nation's destiny so sweepingly epic, that its retelling on the screen has too often come across as a lumbering behemoth of melodrama and grandeur. The triumph of Raymond Bernard's powerful and moving version is the precise, detailed, almost miniaturized depiction of a rigidly stratified society; the drama and adventure of the plot are portrayed with bold mastery, but the poetry, the poignancy, the conviction we feel throughout Valjean's odyssey come from the care and weight Bernard lavishes on the intimate level of the characters' individual lives, their griefs and joys, their resentments and virtues, the clothes they wear, the things they eat, and the places they live and fight in. For the task of bringing a panorama of French society to vivid life, Bernard assembled a magnificent cast of the finest character actors of the period.” --Alicia Springer (Museum of Modern Art)

Note: Les Misérables repeated July 9.