Le Plus joli péché du monde (1951)
Directed by Gilles Grangier

Film Review

Gilles Grangier directed several lively comedies in the course of his long filmmaking career but few are quite a frenetic as Le Plus joli péché du monde, which at times can't help looking like a tribute to the screwball American comedies of the 1930s.  The plot is certainly as contrived and convoluted as any classic screwball, but its deeply ingrained silliness goes well with the generous helping of lunancy served up by a talented cast, headed by 1950s French matinee idol Georges Marchal.  His talents first revealed by Jean Grémillon in Lumière d'été (1943), Marchal enoyed a high-profile career in France and was the only real competitor to Jean Marais in heroic, action oriented roles throughout the 50s.  He made a suitably dynamic D'Artagnan in André Hunebelle's Les Trois Mousquetaires (1953) and had a strong physical presence in Luis Buñuel's La Mort en ce jardin (1956).

Although he is best known as a dramatic actor, Georges Marchal occasionally shone in lighter, comedic roles, such as the one he takes on in Le Plus joli péché du monde.  Here, he is partnered with Dany Robin, an equally charismatic performer of the period whom he subsequently married.  Marchal and Robin made a winning combination and appeared together in several films, including Jean Stelli's La Voyageuse inattendue (1950) and Edmond T. Gréville's Quand sonnera midi (1958).  In Grangier's breezy rom-com, Marchal and Robin spark off each other splendidly - when they are not snapping at each other like a pair of wild dogs, they are rolling about on the carpet trying to murder each other - in short, the usual prelude to a happy marriage.  It's almost a tidy two-hander, until Noël Roquevert shows up as a high-principled Quaker billionaire and then it suddenly becomes his film.  But then, if an actor of Roquevert's standing can't hijack a film, who can?

Film Synopsis

After losing her job Zoé soon finds she hasn't enough money to pay for her next meal.  She sees only one way out of her predicament - she must find a herself a rich lover.  Alluringly attired in clothes provided by her friend Liliane, Zoé begins her campaign of seduction on the streets of Paris but mistakes a driving school instructor for a sugar daddy.  She is rescued by Jacques Lebreton, a man who, despite his obvious charms, is clearly too poor for her taste.  Zoé finds out, too late, that Jacques belongs to a comfortably off family and is to get married, to a woman he does not like, the very next day.  Jacques's fiancée insists on postponing the wedding when, during the ceremony, a little boy appears from nowhere and recognises Jacques as his father.  Just beforehand, the boy, Popaul, had been placed in the care of Zoé, by a complete stranger.  Realising that this is the only way he can get out of a bad marriage, Jacques introduces Zoé to his parents as his mistress and acknowledges Popaul as his own son.  As the little boy's father in unwilling to be separated from his son, Jacques must persuade his parents to engage him as a valet de chambre.  All is well until Jacques' Quaker uncle, a uranium magnate of high morals, decides to pay a visit...