If French cinema could count among its ranks, a higher number of directors with the talent of Julien Duvivier, we surely would have nothing to envy of foreign competition. Furthermore our politician-filmmakers would not reduce themselves to looking among various decrees and legislative headaches for the answer to a crisis that has led us to move in senseless pity for months now. Le Tourbillon de Paris has an abundance of all the characteristics of so-called commercial cinema. At the same time though, it is an art film, an example of beautiful and true cinema. (…) To make this deeply touching work, Duvivier succeeded in gracefully employing all the available resources of the most highly developed cinematographic technologies. Differently from many films that show, for no reason, an entire arsenal of double exposures, soft-focus images, accelerated montages, etc., all the effects and technical research shown here are justified by the plot and get straight to the point. Several examples deserve our full admiration, but there are too many to list them all. We would like to mention the scene at the dance where three images are simultaneously imprinted upon the film. We see Lil Dagover singing in the foreground; at the same time, the images which visually translate the song parade before our eyes, while we see scenes from the dance in the background.

Cinémagazine, 1928