1936 On the Continent

particularly on Saturdays and Sundays, you can still see here a type that is fast dying out, namely, the Parisian seamstress, the typical midinette, who otherwise can only be met occasionally—and singly—on the Metro.
    The Paris Zoo was for a long time treated by the City Fathers in a most step-fatherly manner. However, to-day Paris nevertheless has a modern zoo at the Porte de Vincennes which is worth a visit.
    It is really impossible to recount all the “minor pleasures” that Paris has to offer; opportunities for them crop up everywhere, just as the grass pushes through along the tram-lines.
    There are the numerous passages, each a little bazaar-world in itself. Then there is the famous Musée Grévin on the great Boulevards with the comic chamber of horrors; the Detective Museum on the Boulevard des Italiens, which will make you shudder; the Cabaret de Néant on the Boulevard du Clichy, where patrons eat from coffins, listen to their own funeral oration and, with the aid of a clever lighting effect, can see themselves as corpses in a mirror; the Kermesse in the Berlitz Palace, near the Opera, where you can go motor-boating on an artificial lake; and finally—to conclude on a note of exclamation—the Eiffel. Tower itself, which you must ascend at least once in your life, partly in order to enjoy the view, partly in order to satisfy your own conscience.
    But if you do go up the Eiffel Tower keep it a dead secret and do not mention it to anyone, as, for some unfathomable reason, such an undertaking is regarded as ridiculous and provincial, though of course the Eiffel Tower belongs to the past and has something grandfatherly about it.

EVENING IN PARIS
    Let us begin with the simplest and most respectable evening entertainment, to wit, the cinema.
    In silent film days French production was far behind German and American film production. Pantomime alone does not suit the French temperament, which demands a combination of speech and gesture as a medium of expression, and so, just as the most famous French
chansonniers
have failed on the wireless and on the gramophone because their inimitable gestures are necessarily absent, so French stage-craft failed on the silent screen.
    But since the film acquired speech French film production has received a tremendous impetus and has, for instance, far outstripped German production. There are to-day some great French directors who, as far as artistic merit is concerned, though not in the matter of equipment and financial means, are fully equal to the American directors, as, for instance, Duvivier, Feyder, René Clair, Lherbier, Renoir and Benoit-Lévy. There is a large number of French actors who have greater depth and power than the Hollywood stars who usually become petrified after their initial successes and thereafter only act themselves. We may mention at random Annabella, Claudette Colbert, Simone Simon, Danielle Darieux, Gaby Morlay, Florelle, and, among the men, Charles Boyer, Harry Baur, Armand Bernard, Max Dearly, Larquey, Raimu, Fernandel, and Jean Murat. The list could be extended almost
ad infinitum
.
English Films
    A number of Paris cinemas show English films in the original versions. A list of them will be found each week in the
Semaine à Paris
, a programme periodical which is indispensable both to foreign visitors and natives wishing to know their way in the labyrinth of theatrical, cinema and variety entertainments.
    If you wish to see English films do not allow yourself to be misled into visiting a
small
cinema, as at such places the films are shown in a synchronised form, and thisdestroys their entertainment value. Thus you must always find out beforehand whether a
version originale
is being shown. But for French films you may go even to the smallest cinema, though the big cinemas are the most convenient, in that performances are continuous till 2 a.m. Seats at night and at matinees are considerably cheaper than at other times. (Matinees, by the way, take place in the morning.)
The Theatre
    The Paris theatres might be better than they are. If you will promise not to repeat this, we will advise you, in confidence, not to see serious plays in Paris, unless, of course, you are prepared to be bored in the sacred name of tradition. In that case, however, you may go straight to the Odéon or the Comédie Française. These are two State theatres, and they have truly great traditions dating from the time of Molière, but in recent years they have been just