Ma femme est formidable (1951) - film review

When his wife Sylvia sets out to spend the weekend with her mother, sculptor Raymond Corbier becomes suspicious.  Just who was that man he saw sitting beside her in her car?  The man in question was Sylvia’s ex-lover Francis, whose threat to kill himself lured Sylvia to pay him one last visit.  Convinced that his wife has left him, Raymond decides to commit suicide, but first he sends a parting love letter to an old flame of his, Marguerite, the wife of his best friend, Gaston Rival, a dentist.  On receiving the letter, Marguerite races to Raymond’s apartment and, convinced that he really did try to kill himself, resolves to renew their erstwhile relationship...

Although this film now feels very dated and just a tad ridiculous (almost the parody of a French bedroom farce), it was hugely popular when it was first released in France, and effectively secured André Hunebelle’s career as a director of popular films.  Whilst there are some good jokes, much of the comedy is painfully unsophisticated  – note the obvious caricature of drunks and comedy suicides, and that excruciatingly over-the-top cat-fight with the two lead female characters.  The film is funniest in its first half; towards the end, the pace lags and the jokes get fewer and far between.  Amongst a bevy of cameos from distinguished film actors of the day, the spectator can hardly fail to notice one (at the time) unknown performer who would – twenty years on – become the most popular comedy actor in France: Louis de Funès.

© James Travers 2006

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