Dans l'eau qui fait des bulles (1961)
Directed by Maurice Delbez

Film Review

Dans l'eau qui fait des bulles (also known as Le Garde-champêtre mène l'enquête) is one of the weirder whodunits you are ever likely to watch, one in which the murder victim provides a voiceover narration from beyond the grave, à la Sunset Boulevard. Although a plot résumé may make it sound like an egregious rip-off of Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry (1955), the film is actually based on a novel, Marcel G. Prêtre's La Chair à poissons, and is a quintessentially French black comedy - a fairly amusing one at that. The film was directed by Maurice Delbez, who had previously had a box office smash with another lively comedy - À pied, à cheval et en voiture (1957).

A pretty routine murder mystery is livened up no end by a pleasing river of jet black humour which washes away everything in its path, except of course the corpse which stubbornly refuses to stay put. Louis de Funès (still some years away from that elusive stardom) and Jacques Dufilho are the only two actors to standout in a fairly nondescript ensemble, which includes the inexplicably popular Philippe Lemaire. De Funès' lunatic presence (offering a tantalising foretaste of what is to come in his subsequent film comedies) alone is enough to make the film well worth watching. Dans l'eau qui fait des bulles is an enjoyably daft variation on a familiar theme, with enough devious twists and turns to keep any Agatha Christie addict hooked and enough mischievous graveyard humour to stop the rest of us from falling asleep.

Film Synopsis

Businessman Paul Ernzer is happily indulging in his favourite pastime, fishing on a Swiss lake, when he lands a catch of the most surprising kind - the dead body of the recently deceased Jean-Louis Preminger. It so happens that Ernzer has good reason for wanting Preminger dead - he owed him some money. Fearing he may be mistaken for the killer, the industrialist hastily throws the corpse back into the lake. The cadaver is washed ashore and is found by the victim's wife Arlette and her lover Charles. Each thinking the other killed Preminger, these two quickly make up their minds to conceal the body. As the troublesome corpse continues to resurface, haunting everyone who had a reason to murder Preminger, Commissaire Guillaume begins his criminal investigation...