We will probably never know what Mary Murillo contributed to Mon gosse de père, a film by the elusive actor, writer and director Jean de Limur. She certainly had an important part in its (lost) English language version, The Parisian (1931), scripting the dialogue, while opening titles for Mon gosse de père credit her for the “scénario technique”. Our main interest in her connection to the production lies in letting us have a wonderful time discovering an unknown film of not much importance but much interest, with a marvellous Adolphe Menjou superbly acting a pre-war dandy who so far never, ever considered that work might be part of human life. He boasts different, superior qualities: wit, sensuality, elegance, irony, and all the rest it takes to be Parisian. Nemesis appears in the person of his son: the plot evolves along the clash of cultures and generations, L’Art de vivre of the past vs. ‘Time is Money’ of the present.
There is something peculiar about this comedy, an unusual immediacy, moments of stillness and freshness, long sequences without dialogue and only music or the other way round, only dialogue and no music. Yes, the sound, still in its experimental early stage, definitely adds to the charm. The film starts as a boulevard play and never strays far from that style, but it gets better and by reel four turns highly enjoyable. There are few occasions to get as much prime Menjou as we do here. We may not know much about Murillo, we do not know about de Limur, and we wish we knew less about Menjou, but what an actor!

Mariann Lewinsky