I directed out of pure necessity and without any experience. I cannot say that I had any fun making Mauvaise Graine…

Having fled the Nazi threat in Germany, Billy Wilder made his directorial debut in France. Ostensibly a mere co-director, you can tell from the opening that it’s a Wilder film through and through – beat by beat our assumptions regarding the scene dynamics undermined in that uniquely enjoyable way. Funny, charming, Mauvaise Graine (Bad Seed) is a hidden gem – a delight of a 1934 movie that bears the hallmarks of film’s transitional period following the introduction of sound. But whether dealing with exclusively visual sequences or dialogue scenes of surprising sophistication, Wilder is adept at both. And where the picture really stands out is in a pair of moving long takes, a feat – considering the nature of cameras and sound equipment at the time (if you’ve seen Singin’ in the Rain you’ll have an idea) – nothing short of sensational.

We didn’t use a soundstage. Most of the interiors were shot in a converted auto shop, even the living room set, and we did the automobile chases without transparencies, live, on the streets. It was exhausting. The camera was mounted on the back of a truck or in a car. We were constantly improvising… We were doing nouvelle vague a quarter of a century before they invented a fancy name for it.