Set in the criminal underworld of Paris, this 1925 British box-office smash hit features the beguiling Ivor Novello as the apache Pierre Boucheron, aka The Rat. Novello would go on to star in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1926) and Downhill (1927), but it was The Rat that made him a Valentino-like sensation. Novello’s knife-throwing Rat (a role he created for himself on stage) is dangerous to men, irresistible to women—especially to slumming aristocrat Zélie de Chaumet (Isabel Jeans). Director Cutts does a splendid job bringing Belle Époque Paris to life in his London studio.
35mm print source: British Film Institute
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