ABSTRACT
Jean Renoir's Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (The Crime of Monsieur Lange, 1935) always rises into focus as an eloquent image helping us sort out that mélange of competing values that defined French culture at the moment of the Popular Front. While its allegory of urban labourers who succeed in a struggle against exploitation and corruption might seem naïve today, the fact that the outcome of its social drama turns on the power of popular art makes it quite sophisticated and perennially interesting. Film historians are naturally taken with a film in which the downfall of evil management by a workers' co-operative in a publishing house is modelled on the exploits of 'Arizona Jim', a legendary cowboy whose tale, read by everyone in Paris, keeps the enterprise thriving.
