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The film “Casque d’Or”, a masterpiece of French cinema, has had a makeover. 70 years after its release, it returns in a remastered version. The opportunity to come back to this film freely inspired by a true story in the Paris of the Belle Époque, with its gangs of young delinquents.
In Paris, the popular neighborhoods of Belleville and Ménilmontant are the setting for one of the greatest French films, inspired by real characters from the Belle Époque. It is Golden Helmet, directed by Jacques Becker and first released in 1952. In this film, Simone Signoret, alias Casque d’Or, lives a tragic love story with Serge Reggiani, named Georges Manda. Among the rare natural settings of the film, there is a house in the rue des Cascades (Paris), which has resisted the appetite of real estate developers, which delights local residents.
Helmet d’Or evolves in the middle of gangsters quick to fight. She is erected as a heroine of the lowlands by this film. In fact, the real Golden Helmet was called Amélie Élie. She was a prostitute, who grew up in the miserable Parisian suburbs at the beginning of the last century, coveted by two bands of Apaches, the name given to the criminal gangs of the Belle Époque. 40 years after the disappearance of these tapes, Jacques Becker will revisit their universe by only touching its darkness.