J'ai une idée (1934)
Directed by Roger Richebé

Film Review

1934 saw the release of two films directed by Roger Richebé which starred Raimu, now one of the biggest attractions at the French box office after his triumph in the stage and screen productions of Marcel Pagnol's Marseillaise dramas Marius (1931) and Fanny (1932).  One of these films, Minuit, place Pigalle, now languishes in almost total obscurity, but the other, J'ai une idée, is comparatively well-known, being one of the best of Raimu's early film comedies and also Richebé's most exuberant comedy.  Although the film is typical of the kind of muddled farce that was hugely popular in France of the 1930s it was in fact based on an English stage play, Tons of Money, written by Will Evans and Arthur Valentine, first performed in 1922.  The play had already been adapted twice for cinema in the UK, once as a silent film in 1924 by Frank Hall Crane, then as a sound film in 1930 by Tom Walls.  In 1954, the BBC aired a television adaptation of the same play, with Raimu's role taken by a young Frankie Howerd.

J'ai une idée has none of the sophistication and sly malice of Roger Richebé's subsequent comedies, which include his scurrilous satires L'Habit vert (1937) and Monseigneur (1949), but it is performed with such wild enthusiasm and verve that you can't help being dragged along by it, even if the plot is torturingly tortuous.  Raimu's idea of comedy is an art form in its own right, more circus than theatre with its exaggerated gestures, wacky disguises and cartoonish face-pulling.  In Raimu's more down-to-earth comedies, this over-the-top clowning about tended to be painfully out of place, but here, in a pure farce that absolutely revels in its abundant Wodehousian silliness, it fits perfectly.  Raimu tends to get praised more for his dramatic performances than his humorous turns, but in Richebé's most unbridled comedy he is unequivocally in his element - comedy was what he was born for, well, this comedy at least.

With its lead actor being let totally off the leash, the film could so easily have ended up as a one-man show, with every other cast member forced into looking like just some piece of stage decoration.  Not so.  Far from being outstaged by Raimu's comedic excesses, Simone Deguyse is the perfect comic foil as the well-meaning wife who innocently sends Raimu off to the limits of comical absurdity whilst she remains demure, unflustered and humming with vitality - a cross between a femme fatale and an unexploded bomb.  Charlotte Clasis and Christiane Delyne also do a fair amount of scene-stealing as two somewhat more eccentric females - one a strange aunt who looks as if she would be more at home in Arsenic and Old Lace, the other a ditsy flapper-type of the 1920s who mistakes just abut everyone with a dark tan and a moustache for her husband.  The latter's habit of fainting whenever she sees her supposed husband is one of the funnier repeat gags employed by the film.  How easy it would be to read a feminist subtext into the film, particularly as it is mainly the female characters who drive the plot, creating the absurd comedy situations which lead Raimu to make an utter fool of himself.  Are women the wiser sex?  Well, judging by what happens to poor Aubrey Allington, only a man would be foolish enough to act on their ideas...

Film Synopsis

Aubrey Allington is an unsuccessful inventor who is saddled with debts, thanks in part to his wife Louise's genius for spending money faster than he can make it.  Imagine then his delight when, one day, he learns that he has just inherited a fortune from a distant relative.  He quickly realises that he will not benefit from this windfall as all the money will be snatched from him by his impatient creditors.  But lo, his wife has an idea!  The will stipulates that if Aubrey were to die, the inheritance will pass to his Mexican cousin, whom no one has seen for years.  So all Aubrey has to do to get his hands on the money and keep it to himself is (a) pretend to kill himself and (b) pass himself off as his Mexican cousin.  The first stage of the operation goes as planned - Aubrey makes it appear that he perished in one of his experiments - but when he is reincarnated as his Mexican cousin he is immediately accosted by the latter's wife Daisy, who turns up out of the blue and is entirely taken in by the deception.  Things take a more awkward turn when another man posing as Aubrey's Mexican cousin shows up to claim his inheritance - he is in fact an actor hired by Aubrey's cunning valet, but the disguise fools both Aubrey and Daisy.  Thankfully, Louise has another idea!  Aubrey must kill himself a second time to make it appear the Mexican cousin is dead, thereby allowing his wife to inherit the money, according to the terms of the will.  No sooner has Aubrey died a second time than who should appear but another Mexican cousin - the real one this time - to claim what is rightfully his.  Louise's stock of ideas shows no sign of running out.  Her next plan is for Aubrey (twice dead, once revived) to come back to life a second time, this time as his original self, and feign amnesia.  What a good thing it is to be married to someone who is full of ideas...