A gutter rat plays dress-up in silk gloves, but the streets never forget.
In the 19th century, a thug from the slums of Paris pretends to be a young aristocrat, but is unmasked by a demi-mondaine, from the same background as him.
Acting
Brasseur's shapeshifting—charm and menace in the same smile
Costume
The visual lie: rags to cravat transformation that fools everyone
Director
Jacques de Baroncelli
Pierre Brasseur
Rocambole
Sophie Desmarets
Baccarat
Robert Arnoux
Ventura
Loredana
Carmen de Montevecchio
Roland Armontel
Le comte Artoff
Marcel Delaître
Le docteur Blanche
Carla Candiani
Fanny
Vittorio Sanipoli
Arnaud, comte de Chamery
Ernesto Sabbatini
Le marquis de Montevecchio
Attilio Dottesio
Luisa Rossi
Marcello Giorda
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Rocambole was a wildly popular 19th-century literary antihero; this 1948 adaptation arrived when postwar France was freshly obsessed with class mobility and reinvention.
Pierre Brasseur was so committed to the role's physicality that he reportedly kept his 'aristocratic' posture off-set for weeks, annoying everyone.
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