Written and directed by Christophe Barratier, “Paris 36”is a sprawling film that is in a sense an homage to the French classic “Children of Paradise.” The evocation, of course, cannot duplicate the greatness of its predecessor, but it carries on the tradition of exploring the passion that goes into the world of the stage, in this case a music hall. The handsome-looking film is set in the 1936 period of the Popular Front government that brought new hope to workers, enraged the right and preceded the tragedy for France with the German occupation in World War II.

The drama, with newly written music by Reinhardt Wagner and lyrics by Frank Thomas, is rich in songs composed to capture the feeling of music hall entertainment at the time. A colorful cast includes Gérard Jugnot, Clovis Cornillac, Kad Merad, Nora Arnezeder, and Pierre Richard, as well as a host of others. The film, set in an imaginary quarter called the Faubourg, is an entertainment that manages to be both showy and intimate. The sentiment in the story, both with respect to the nostalgia evoked and the way in which the various plot threads are resolved, is come by honestly, with tearful moments guaranteed.

One fabulous contribution is the discovery of newcomer Arnezeder as Douce, a naïve young woman who comes to Paris bent on making her mark in show business. Arnezeder is a beauty—wide-eyed, talented and a striking leading lady. As for the men, Jugnot makes a strong Pigoil, a stagehand who struggles to help keep the Chansonia Music Hall alive in the face of financial pressure and nasty opposition by an unscrupulous, crooked neighborhood wheeler-dealer, and also to retrieve his young son Jojo (Maxence Perrin) taken from him by his estranged wife and her new lover. Cornillac is excellent as the radical Milou, who falls in love with Douce. Merad has a colorful role as Jacky, a failed aspiring entertainer who does corny impersonations and is used by right-wing anti-Semites who one can project will wind up being collaborators with the Vichy regime under the Nazis.