La Poison (1951) - film review

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…

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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