I blogged about this film here: http://criterionreflections.blogspot.com/2009/01/under-roofs-of-paris-161.html

An excerpt: In its narrative structure, acting performances and subject matter, I don’t think any fans of the movie would feel insulted by my summation that we are not dealing with “great art” here. The story is slight, breezy and fairly conventional – and after what I’ve been watching over the past couple weeks, I’m quite thankful for that! A pretty young woman, Pola, has arrived in Paris from somewhere in Romania. She quickly catches the attention of a few bachelors: Albert, his best friend Louis, and Fred, a tough guy who considers Pola to be his for the taking. A rivalry develops between the three as to who will win Pola’s lasting favor and she flits from one to the other over the course of the film. Songs are sung, comic escapades provide pleasant diversions and viewers enjoy a charming escapade through the cobblestone streets and picturesque watering holes of late 20’s Paris. I found the whole thing nicely amusing and laugh-out-loud funny in several places: the restless night that Pola and Albert spend at his apartment, negotiating who will or won’t sleep in his bed; the various tensions that develop between the leading male characters as they carouse, posture and gamble with each other to determine who has the next shot at wooing Pola, and finally a chaotic and intriguingly filmed fight scene near the end of the picture that creatively applies sounds create atmospheric details apart from what is seen on the screen. It’s helpful to remember that we are seeing this combination of media being used together for practically the first time, and it provides some interesting material to reflect on the development of sound/image vocabulary ever since.