Marcel L'Herbier had become one of the most prominent French film-makers during the 1920s, but even after he had sought greater creative independence by establishing his own production company, Cinégraphic, he experienced continual frustration over the financial arrangements under which he had to work.

Saccard sees an opportunity to rescue his failing bank, Banque Universelle, by financing the solo transatlantic flight of Jacques Hamelin, a pioneering aviator.

Saccard intends to capitalise on his popularity to set up a colonial business project in Guyane and to seduce Hamelin's wife Line in his absence.

The theatre and film director André Antoine published a newspaper article denouncing such a betrayal of Zola's depiction of society in the Second Empire and arguing that it was unacceptable to treat a classic work of literature in this way.

L'Herbier delivered a robust reply, pointing out the long history of literary transpositions and arguing that to treat Zola's novel as a period piece would be to betray the passion of its theme.

At the Joinville Studios, art directors André Barsacq and Lazare Meerson constructed several monumental sets for key scenes: the grand interiors of the respective banks of Saccard and Gunderman, the Hamelins' apartment with its view over the skyline of Paris, the baroness Sandorf's mansion with its split-level gaming room, and for Saccard's party the massive room in his house with one wall consisting of organ-pipes and a central pool and fountains with a bridge providing a stage for the entertainers.

Still more challenging was a night-time scene in the Place de l'Opéra which had to be specially lit and filled with people to convey the feverish excitement of waiting for news of Hamelin's flight.

Its reception among critics was more mixed, as some regarded it as a visual triumph while others found scant justification in the story for the indulgence in spectacular sets and energetic camerawork.

[8] In the 1970s, however, a detailed study by Noël Burch, in which he argued that L'Argent was a ground-breaking work and one of the cinema's greatest achievements, launched a re-evaluation of the film.

The resulting film, entitled Autour de L'Argent (1928), was itself a vigorous exercise in poetic montage, capturing the atmosphere and sheer scale of the sets from the points of view of the lighting riggers, the cameramen and the extras.