Abel Gance's La fin du monde (The End of the World) is a difficult movie to see in its original version. The Daily Variety review from February 11, 1931 judged it a complete artistic and commercial disaster and placed the blame squarely at the feet of its 'overreaching' director. The movie was in production for almost two years, cost five million francs and became the first all-talking French feature film. Gance spent a fortune developing a stereophonic sound system, hoping to widen the aural experience in the same way that he spread out his masterpiece Napoleon onto three screens. It's uncertain if the film was ever exhibited with a stereo track.