From 1920s Paris, a witty take on love and politics

The highlight of LACMA’s “The Roaring Twenties in Paris: Silent Classics From the Cinematheque Francaise” is Jacques Feyder’s brisk and witty 1928 “The New Men” (Les Nouveaux Messieurs), a romantic triangle set against a satirically viewed world of politics. With the utmost sophistication and an absolute lack of sentimentality, Feyder introduces Suzanne (Gaby Morlay), a dancer at the Paris Opera longer on beauty than talent. She is being kept by an aristocratic and powerful older politician (Henry Roussel), who is in the position to advance her to star status, but she is drawn to Gaillac (Albert Prejean), a husky young electrician at the opera. Feyder and co-writer Charles Spaak veer away for a predictable love-versus-career plot when Gaillac’s leadership in a successful strike propels him into a major political career.

Government censors were sufficiently ruffled by the film’s satirical elements to ban it for a year, by which time Feyder had been summoned to MGM to direct Garbo in her last silent, “The Kiss,” and the French-language version of her first talkie, “Anna Christie.” By 1935, Feyder had returned to France to direct the classic “Carnival in Flanders,” one of several major films he directed starring his wife, the great Francoise Rosay.

A program of short films screens Friday at 7:30 p.m. (323) 857-6010.