Under the Roofs of Paris may be technically out of date, but the story could still be contemporary with some adjustments. The basic plot involves a street singer competing with a small time gangster for the love of a Romanian girl. The singer, Albert, also has a friendly rivalry with Louis. The girl, Pola, plays hard to get, but proves to be relatively easy in her affections. One could easily imagine the story reworked with a current urban setting involving a rap artist, Les Garcons dans le "Hood". I don't know the history of the making of the film but it is a hybrid, part talkie, part silent. Clair plays with the sound track by having an accordian player play The Wedding March after Albert announces his "engagement" to Pola. In a later scene, a record player gets stuck playing during a fight. Clair also has Pola and Albert arguing in a dark room, with their shadows partially visible. While the humor is not raucous, and the story hardly important, Clair loves his crooks and schnooks enough to elicit smiles throughout the film. I also enjoyed seeing, as Louis, Edmond Greville, who later became a director of some note.

It Happened Tomorrow is enjoyable on its own terms. The story, told in flashback, is of a newspaper reporter in 1894 who is given a copy of the next day's newspaper by a mysterious co-worker. The film's lesson is that knowing the future can have unanticipated problems and not be the advantage one may imagine. This makes the film kind of like Paycheck, only with fewer chases and much fewer guns. Dick Powell is amiable enough as the ambitious reporter, but one winces when he is called "young man". More fun are Linda Darnell as a fake psychic, and Jack Oakie, sporting an Italian accent and facial hair.

Rene Clair's career is one that went quickly from being the future of filmmaking to a symbol of the past. Still, those who have seen his films, such as Vladimir Nabokov always seem to remember this filmmaker with a smile.