Allô Berlin ? Ici Paris ! / Hallo hallo! Hier spricht Berlin

This German-French-American co-production is one of Duvivier's most cheerful films, a fast-paced comedy of love and mistaken identity about telephone operators in Paris and their colleagues at the Berlin telephone exchange. This multi-language film, overflowing with the joy of experimentation - the Germans speak German to each other, the French women speak French and when they meet, they do their best to make themselves understood - celebrates the unifying power of the telephone and the new medium of sound film. Duvivier combines the best qualities of the Weimar sound film comedy with those of French poetic realism: "Duvivier's sound film comedy is finally a real film again and not a photographed play," enthused Fritz Rosenfeld in the Arbeiter Zeitung after the Viennese premiere in March 1932. (Frederik Lang)