Set in the hustle and bustle of the Montmarte district of Paris, and fusing joie de vivre with bitter resentments, Marcel Blistène’s Macadam (US: Back Streets of Paris) is a film with two personalities: one descends into fits of anxiety, haunted by a murderous past, the other percolates with a lighthearted air and anticipates a romantic future. For innkeeper Madame Rose (Françoise Rosay), the past arrives in the form of fugitive Victor Menard (Paul Meurisse), her erstwhile criminal partner (and a murderer) who needs a room as he awaits his departure to South America with the briefcase of loot in his possession. For Rose’s timid daughter Simone (Andrée Clément), a hopeful future arrives in the form of François (Jacques Dacqmine), a handsome laborer in a sailor suit who returns her feelings of affection only until encountering Gisele (Simone Signoret), Menard’s manipulative “girlfriend.” Both mother and daughter are in for pain and manipulation, but Blistène leaves us with a glimmer of hope at the end. Rosay stands out as the bawdy, overconfident, over-sized mother (“I’d rather be raising pigs”) who will come to contentment too late, and Meurisse as always masters the volatile, vengeful criminal role, his extended fistfight with François teetering toward slapstick but his final confrontation with Rose dripping with psychological complexity. Side note: watch for the scene in which a giraffe upstages two human characters.