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La Poison
1951 Comedy
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Credits
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Director: Sacha Guitry
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Script: Sacha Guitry
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Photo: Jean Bachelet
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Music: Louiguy
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Cast: Michel Simon (Paul Louis Victor Braconnier),
Jean Debucourt (Maître Aubanel),
Jacques Varennes (le procureur),
Jeanne Fusier-Gir (Mme Tiberghese),
Germaine Reuver (Blandine Braconnier),
Pauline Carton (Mme Michon,
la mercière),
Louis de Funès (André),
Jean Duvaleix (le curé),
Sacha Guitry (apparition au générique)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 85 min; B&W
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Aka: Poison
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Summary
The home life of Paul Braconnier and his wife Blandine can hardly be described as one
of marital bliss. They hate each other – to the point of wanting to murder one another.
When Braconnier hears about Maître Aubanel, a defence lawyer who has won over a
100 cases, he decides to visit him. He wants to know how he can kill his wife and
get away with it. Encouraged by what he hears, Braconnier stabs his wife to death,
just as she is about to poison him. With Aubanel to defend him, Braconnier is certain
his crime will go unpunished…
Review
If you ignore the lengthy and self-indulgent opening sequence (in which Sacha Guitry tells
a rather embarrassed Michel Simon what a good actor he is), La Poison is a rather
entertaining black comedy. Contrary to what Guitry seems to think, Simon needs no
introduction and his performance in this film stands as one of his finest. Once
more he is the familiar lovable rogue that seems to dominate so much of French cinema
from the 1930s to the 1950s. The script is up to Guitry’s usual high standard and
overall it makes a pleasing wry satire on married life and the French legal system. The
film was remade in 2001,
Un crime au paradis, directed by Jean Becker and starring Jacques Villeret
and Josianne Balasko.
© James Travers 2003
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