Du grabuge chez les veuves (1964) - film review

When Guillaume Valmont dies in a car accident, the only thing he leaves his wife Isabelle is his pharmacy.  Isabelle never loved her older husband and she regards his death as a deliverance.  At the funeral, she meets Judith, another widow, and she soon realises that her husband had been leading a double life.  A short while later, the pharmacy is broken into, but nothing is stolen.  Police Inspector Laforêt is put in charge of the case.   Isabelle suddenly becomes suspicious when Judith offers to buy the pharmacy.  When she refuses, Isabelle finds herself caught up in a game of cat and mouse, but she finds out more about her husband than when he was alive...
© Willems Henri (Brussels, Belgium)

Once assistant to Roger Vadim and Michel Boisrond, Jacques Poitrenaud made his directing debut in 1960 with light comedies reflecting the mood in France of that era - Les Portent claquent and Les Amours de Paris.  These were followed by films such as Strip-tease and L’Inconnue de Hong Kong (with French singers Dalida and Serge Gainsbourg).  1964 saw the release of what is probably the best film of his career, Du grabuge chez les veuves.

Based on Jean-Pierre Ferrière’s novel, this Franco-Italian production is a bittersweet crime-comedy that is sometimes funny but never pretentious, a film in which all the characters try to fool everybody else.  With a screenplay from film director Denys de La Patellière, dialogue by Albert Simonin and a score by Georges Delerue, the story about a dead pharmacist and his two widows comes as a pleasant surprise, with an unexpected twist at the end.

The film’s title has its own story.  It was originally intended to have been Du rififi chez les veuves, but Auguste le Breton refused to give his permission for the word he had invented and trademarked, Rififi.  Le Breton had used the word in a series of novels, many of which had been adapted for the cinema, including: Du rififi chez les hommes, Du rififi chez les femmes and Du rififi à paname.  This explains why the film ended up being titled Du grabuge chez les veuves, grabuge meaning ’mayhem’.

The first widow in question is Danielle Darrieux, one of the few French icons who is still alive and working - she began her singing and acting career in the 1930s with filmmaker-husband Henri Decoin.  In the 1940s, Darrieux was mostly seen in dramas or light comedies and became the public’s sweetheart.   She also took on English-speaking roles, and she shined in two American productions: Five Fingers (with James Mason, 1951) and Alexander the Great (with Richard Burton, 1956).  Her French film successes include  La Ronde, La Vérité sur Bébé Donge, Madame de..., Le Rouge et le noir, Pot-bouille and Marie-Octobre.  The 1960s brought her back to crime-dramas and comedies like Landru and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.  From the 1970s until the present day, Darrieux (now 95 years old) continues to work for television, the theatre and in films for directors who include Claude Sautet or André Téchiné.

The second widow is the delightful Vietnam-born but French exotic siren of the 1950s and 60s, Dany Carrel, who has worked with such distinguished actors as Jean Gabin, Pierre Brasseur, Gérard Philipe and Jean Marais.  The investigating cop is played by the popular and talented actor Jean Rochefort, a stalwart of French cinema since the 1960s, when he appeared in the Angélique movies with Michèle Mercier.  In the supporting cast, we recognize the Belgian-born Jacques Castelot, who appeared in 80 films between 1940 and 1980.  The unknown Italian actor Enzo Doria was chosen by the Italian producers to play Angelo, a character we could describe as ’too beautiful to be true.’  This little known piece of work is well worth seeing and is at your disposal on DVD.

© Willems Henri (Brussels, Belgium) 2012

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