L'Amour n'est pas un péché (1952)
Directed by Claude Cariven

Film Review

You would hardly think that Robert Dhéry and Colette Brosset were married in real-life, given the fight they put up in this battle-of-the-sexes comedy.   In fact, not only were Dhéry and Brosset (apparently) happily married, they were also a successful comedy team, the founders of the incredibly popular troupe Les Branquignols.  Another member of this famous troupe was Louis de Funès, who also appears in the film, many years before he became France's biggest and best-loved comedy icon.  In every scene in which he appears de Funès steals the film with effortless ease and is unceasingly funny for every moment he is on screen.  You'd have to be a chronic defunèsaphobe not to be won over by this comedy legend, especially when he is dancing a cute little number in his pyjamas.

De Funès comedy interludes aside, the film is mostly dull and listless, with pretty well all of the best gags exhausted within the first fifteen minutes.  The last twenty minutes (where the location suddenly shifts to a ski resort for no good reason) is as amusing as a wake.  As in virtually every other film they made, Dhéry and Brosset struggle to live up to their reputations as top notch comedy entertainers, and were it not for de Funès' presence the film would be instantly forgettable.  Claude Cariven never directed a film before or after this, and it is easy to see why.  What should have been a comedy gold mine ends up being a one-man show.

Film Synopsis

Eliane Cahuzac and Jacques Loursier are both urgently in need of an apartment and Fate decides that they will end up sharing the same landing in the same Parisian apartment block.  The problem is that Eliane is an ardent feminist, the president of the Association for the Triumph and Independence of Women, whilst Jacques is the founder member of the Anti-Woman Union, a men's only society committed to putting the fair sex in their place and keeping them there.  It could well be a match made in Heaven, if they don't kill each other first...