La Belle Equipe

An amiable group of misfits living together in destitution win a sweepstake, and with their pooled resources decide to turn a derelict old building on the Marne embankment into a café-concert. With its pervasive odour of fried sausages and bicycle tyres, the gruff voices of Gabin, Vanel et al, and an authentic whiff of the Popular Front (dispersed all too soon by a mixture of wanderlust and woman-lust among the five), this minor 'classic' - once intended for Renoir - is a Cartier-Bresson photograph teased into life.