La Banque Nemo (1934)
Directed by Marguerite Viel

Film Review

Adapted from a highly topical stage play by Louis Verneuil, La Banque Némo makes light of a series of high-profile political-financial scandals that rocked France in the early 1930s.  The persuasive and insanely ambitious main character Gustave Labrèche is almost certainly based on the notorious swindler Serge Alexandre Stavisky, who masterminded one of the most infamous frauds in history and was the subject of great controversy when he died, possibly at the instigation of the French government, in 1934.  (Stolen Holiday, a film based on the Stavisky Affair, was made in Hollywood by Michael Curtiz in 1937.) The film was directed by Marguerite Viel, one of the few women filmmakers to be working in France in this period.  Although somewhat dated (and far less inspired than the similarly themed Ces messieurs de la Santé), La Banque Némo simmers with caustic humour and offers a hint of how cynically minded the French public had become after such catastrophic incidents as the Stavisky Affair, and how little they trusted the banks and the money men.  How things have changed...

Film Synopsis

Émile Larnoy works as a modest cashier at the Némo Bank, one of France's most prestigious financial institutions.  To buy an expensive fur coat for his girlfriend Charlotte he risks his job by stealing a large quantity of money from his boss.  Despite his precautions it isn't long before the theft is noticed and Larnoy's downfall is swift and decisive - he loses his job and then ends up in prison.  One man's misfortune is another man's opportunity to shoot up the greasy pole, and once Larnoy has gone his place at the bank is taken by Gustave Labrèche, a smooth talker who has big ambitions.  Through a combination of cunning and chicanery, Labrèche makes a rapid ascent up the hierarchy and he soon occupies one of the most important positions in the bank.  Still he is not satisfied.  He is determined that he should take the top job, and this he achieves by convincing the bank's present owner that it on the brink of ruin.  Labrèche sees this as only the beginning - he intends becoming one of the titans of the financial world.  A threat to his ambitions comes from an unexpected quarter, when Larnoy is let out of prison and shows up at the bank.  He assures Labrèche that his dodgy dealings will be exposed to the world unless he gives him a senior job in the bank...