Le double amour

“Epstein’s two classic melodramas L’affiche and Le double amour were intended primarily as vehicles for [Films] Albatros’s main star, the great Russian actress Nathalia Lissenko, and whilst they follow the rules of the genre to the letter, they contain with them the bitterest of social commentaries to be found in any French film of the 1920s,” writes critic James Travers. “Le double amour is particularly trenchant in its condemnation of the double standards of the bourgeoisie. The corrupting influence of money and the hypocrisies that wealth engenders are felt in virtually every scene” of this double story of woman whose lover and son are chronic gamblers.