La Taverne du poisson couronné (1947) - film review

Captain Palmer returns to port with his cargo after an eventful sea voyage in which he his seamanship was tested to the limit by a violent storm.  He meets up with his daughter Maria, who has recently married Fléau, an unscrupulous adventurer.  Father and daughter head for the Tavern of the Crowned Fish where Fléau has been cheating on his wife with an alluring singer named Sylvia.  Palmer returns with Pierre, a man who went abroad to make his fortune out of his love for Sylvia.

René Chanas took up directing at the age of thirty-two, made some ten undistinguished movies and called it a day at the age of forty-one.  So much for learning curves.  The Tavern of the Crowned Fish  reunites two of the finest actors in French cinema, Michel Simon and Jules Berry, who had previously played joint leads in Le Mort en fuit (1936) and had done so brilliantly.  Here they are totally wasted, as are Blanchette Brunoy and Michèle Martin.  For masochists only.

© Leon Nock (London, England) 2010 

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