The three decades between 1930 and 1960 were one of the most creative periods in the history of cinema. During this era, films achieved a level of great sophistication, and in France this era produced some of the most famous films ever made - Jean Vigo's Zero de conduite. Rene Clair's A nous la liberte, Jean Renoir's Crime de M Lange, and Jean Cocteau's Orphee.

In The Classic French Cinema, 1930-1960, Colin Crisp investigates the critical period from the introduction of sound to the beginning of the New Wave. He details the extraordinary ingenuity of French filmmakers who worked under economic and technological constraints that affected both the production and the consumption of films.

In this comprehensive study, Crisp synthesizes a large body of work on the French cinema, most of it published only in French. At the same time, he radically re-writes aspects of the industrial history of the classic French cinema, shedding new light on its periodization and re-evaluating the extent of German influence on the French film industry's postwar organization.

Crisp also reveals the New Wave filmmakers to be the natural heirs of the classic French cinema, rather than a break with the earlier tradition. Fully illustrated with over 50 black-and-white photos from these classic films, plus numerous charts, and figures