Le Sexe faible (1933)
Directed by Robert Siodmak

Film Review

Director Robert Siodmak's six year long stint in France (after his hasty flight from Nazi Germany) got off to a flying start with this amiable if somewhat mechanical comedy adapted by Édouard Bourdet from his popular stage play of 1929.  Le Sexe faible shows little - if any - of the stylistic flair that Siodmak would bring to his far better known Hollywood productions - The Spiral Staircase (1945), The Killers (1946), Criss Cross (1948) - but it makes an enjoyable, good-natured romp, mostly on account of the colourful turns from a charismatic cast of some distinction.  Jeanne Cheirel is well-suited to play the calculating matriarch who cannot resist meddling in her grown-up children's lives, in ways that inevitably go the way of a good P.G. Wodehouse comedy.

There is no ubiquitous Jeeves here to help the scheming dowager in her plans, but Victor Boucher's humorously ironic maître d' makes a fair substitute, allowing Cheirel to continue her campaign of maternal good will to ludicrous extremes with no chance whatever of achieving the desired outcome.  The plot and characters are pure Wodehouse and with actors of the calibre of Pierre Brasseur and Marguerite Moreno helping to fill them out to their full comedy potential there's scarcely a dull moment.  With seductive starlets Mireille Balin and Betty Stockfeld on board there's no shortage of sizzle and glamour, and Siodmak makes the most of the latter's erotic possibilities with a memorable scene in which she strips down to her underwear behind a far from opaque screen (a tantalising foretaste of the director's later film noir offerings).  Ultimately it is Moreno's man-eating Russian countess who makes the biggest impact - proving beyond any doubt that if there is a weaker sex women are most definitely not it.

Film Synopsis

Madame Leroy-Gomez is one of the wealthy patrons of an exclusive Parisian hotel.  A firm believer in the idea that one can never have too much of a good thing as far as lucre is concerned, she encourages her sons Jimmy and Philippe to marry for money, not knowing that they are too fond of their carefree bachelor existence to fall in with these well-meaning plans.  Between her bouts of self-interested matchmaking Madame Leroy-Gomez concerns herself with her other son, whose marriage appears to be in some difficulty, and her free-spirited daughter, who is far too independently minded for her own good.  Thankfully, Madame Leroy-Gomez can rely on the services of Antoine, the ever discrete maître d'hôtel, to keep her abreast of developments, although even Antoine's abilities prove insufficient in the end.  It seems that Jimmy is too romantically involved with a chambermaid named Nicole to go where the money is, and Philippe is none too keen to play gigolo to the Countess Polacchi, a woman who is at least forty years his senior...