Film Review
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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Film Synopsis
It is only after her husband Guillaume's death that Isabelle Valmont discovers
he has been leading an incredible double life for years. Isabelle was
never particularly enamoured of her husband - in fact she found him pretty
unbearable - so now that he is gone she has an immense feeling of release.
Her first insight into Guillaume's secret existence comes at his funeral,
when another widow, Judith, drops a few worrying hints. Isabelle's concerns
are further exacerbated when the pharmacy she has inherited from her husband
is broken into one day.
Strangely, nothing appears to have been stolen, but this doesn't deter police
Inspector Laforêt from carrying out a thorough, you might even say obsessive,
investigation. An unexpected offer from Judith to take the pharmacy
of her hands convinces Isabelle that something is seriously amiss. After
refusing to sell the store, the widow has reason to think she is being led
a merry dance by some unseen adversary. Then she makes the shocking
discovery that her husband was mixed up in a major drugs trafficking operation...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.