Je suis avec toi (1943)
Directed by Henri Decoin

Film Review

It is a popular misconception that all French films made during the Occupation were bleak, sombre affairs that tended to wallow in the misery of the time.  Je suis avec toi is a film of this era that instantly dispels this notion and looks more like an American screwball comedy of the 1930s than something that came out of France in its darkest hour.  It is the kind of frivolous crowdpleaser you can imagine Howard Hawks or Preston Sturges turning out (indeed the plot clearly nods towards George Cukor's Two-Faced Woman (1941), Greta Garbo's swansong), so it's a surprise to discover that it was in fact directed by Henri Decoin, who is more associated with brooding melodramas than light comedies.  Decoin's other Occupation era films include such moody dramas as Le Bienfaiteur (1942) and Les Inconnus dans la maison (1942), which are far more typical of his oeuvre and far closer to what you would expect for a film of this period.

Looking every inch the classic Hollywood couple (Fred and Ginger spring instantly to mind), Yvonne Printemps and Pierre Fresnay both look as if they are pumped full of steroids as they waltz through this comedy marathon.  Married in real life, Printemps and Fresnay starred alongside one another in eight films, of which Je suis avec toi is the fifth and, arguably, most entertaining.  After appearing together in a stodgy melodrama - Le Duel (1939), the one film directed by Fresnay - they return to the unbridled gaiety of Trois valses (1938), one of their biggest successes.  With a better script and better director, this frenetic comedy outshines its predecessor and gives Fresnay more opportunity to do something he very rarely did, namely to make his audience roar with laughter.  Every cosy love nest must have a cuckoo and in this instance the role of the unwelcome gooseberry is enjoyably fulfilled by Bernard Blier, hilarious in one of his earliest tour de force comedy performances.  Blier's presence brings more than a touch of class to what might otherwise have been a very silly rom-com.

Showing an almost manic lack of restraint throughout, Je suis avec toi goes completely off the rails when Fresnay and Printemps go on an amusement binge at Luna Park.  The wild editing and dizzying point-of-view shots taken from various amusement rides create a head-spinning sense of exhilaration.  These, together with the obvious chemistry of the two leads, provides an extraordinarily vivid impression of amorous intoxication, which reaches its peak when the film's main number, Vertige d'un soir, bursts from Printemps' lungs.  Released just before Christmas 1943, Je suis avec toi is exactly the kind of exuberant pick-me-up that French cinema audiences would have relished in the dark days of occupation.  You only have to watch Fresnay's previous film, the relentlessly pessimistic Le Corbeau, to see how things really were and why breezy madcap comedies like Decoin's were such an essential part of life in occupied France.  Forget religion, comedy is the real opium of the people.

Film Synopsis

As she is on her way to New York by ocean liner to sort out an inheritance, Elisabeth La Ferrière is convinced that her husband François will take advantage of her absence to start an extramarital affair.  Having taken the first flight back to France, she checks into the hotel where her husband is staying with his friend Robert and passes herself off as another woman, Irène, when she meets him.  Completely taken in by this deception, François and Robert are soon competing for Irène's attentions.  Elisabeth's doubts about her husband's fidelity are soon borne out, as François takes her as his mistress.  It is not long before François begins to suspect the truth, and Elisabeth has to exercise all her cunning to prevent her little scheme from coming unravelled...