Antoine & Antoinette

Post-war Paris. Antoine works in a print shop, Antoinette behind a shop counter. Two small wages, one room, noisy neighbours on the same staircase. One evening Antoine finds a lottery ticket in her handbag, and the ticket has won. On his way to collect the money he loses his wallet. What follows is a scramble after that ticket, in the course of which the two of them learn in a single day what their life actually hangs on. Jacques Becker's film took a prize at Cannes in 1947. Eighty-eight minutes. Becker uses the neighbourhood not as scenery but as a character: the grocer, the neighbour, the bus, the stairwell. A young Louis de Funès appears in a small part.