Alas, there are only two reviews here for this minor charmer and both may have failed to take into account the climate in which it was made and released. I wasn't around myself at the time but I have read extensively and spoken to people, including my parents, who did remember the build-up to the second world war - it actually began one year after Retour a l'aube was released - and it's reasonable to assume that the ordinary people turned to cinema as a way to forget the gloom of real life for a couple of hours and what better way than to watch a beautiful twenty-one year old actress trapped in a hum-drum life and getting to wear glamorous clothes, stay in a five-star hotel and gambol in a casino if only for a day. This was exactly the kind of role that had catapulted Danielle Darrieux to Number One at the French box- office and here, as in most of her films, she got to display her charming singing voice so what's not to like. This was the fourth time in two years she was directed by her husband Henri Decoin and there would be two more before they divorced in 1940 and three a decade later. Okay, it's a soufflé' but it's also a time-capsule and as such hors de prix.
Review of She Returned at Dawn
