Au diable la vertu (1953)
Directed by Jean Laviron

Film Review

Some ebullient performances make this rather convoluted farce entertaining - watch out for Louis de Funès in one of his early supporting roles.  As usual, the narrative is driven by a seemingly endless series of improbable mix-ups of identity, but some of the jokes are actually quite good.  The film's highpoint is the hilarious sequences where the investigating judge and his entourage attempt to identify a love bite on a witness' upper thigh - you wouldn't find that kind of thing in an American film of this period.

Film Synopsis

Pierre has to resort to desperate measures when his wife Gisèle finds out he was away from home one night.  To prevent his wife from discovering he has a mistress, he realises he needs to concoct a water-tight alibi.  To this end, he offers a stranger, Robert Crémieux, a large sum of money if he will pass himself off as an old friend and tell his wife that they spent the evening in question together.

The plan might have worked if it wasn't for the fact that Crémieux is a crook and at the time he claims to have been whiling away a pleasant evening with Pierre he was in fact engaged in a spot of burglary.  Far from providing Pierre with an alibi for his own misdemeanour, Crémieux effectively makes him an accomplice in his crime.  Things look bleak for Pierre when the burglar's victim identifies him as the man who raped her in the course of the robbery...