Pension Mimosas was the film which set the tone for the poetic realism of the Thirties French cinema, a movement which reached its height in the films of Marcel Carné. Pension Mimosas was also one of several important films which Jacques Feyder made in collaboration with writer Charles Spaak, designer Lazare Meerson, and Feyder's wife, actress Françoise Rosay (see also Le Grand Jeu, May 18).
“Pension Mimosas,” writes historian Georges Sadoul, “followed and surpassed Le Grand Jeu. Here Françoise Rosay was a modern Phèdre who is in love with her adopted son, and who, in order to get him away from her young rival, leads him to commit suicide. Spaak's script was more melodrama than tragedy; the real subject of the film was gambling, the Game of Chance: gambling at Monte Carlo, gambling in Paris society, gambling amongst the crooks and the would-be gangsters. The sets, by their very preciseness, took on an immense importance; the shabby boarding house, which gives the film its title, became one of the protagonists of the film; the gambling hall with the roulette table; so was the low night-club on the banks of the Seine where Françoise Rosay came upon her adopted son in the company of the would-be gangsters.”

Please Note: Pension Mimosas will be repeated Sunday, May 30.