Les Pépées font la loi (1955)
Directed by Raoul André

Film Review

Had it been scripted and directed with a little more flair and imagination, Les Pépées font la loi could very well have been a classic in the French comedy-thriller genre.  Sadly, despite its brilliant premise - one that would doubtless have warmed the heart of any militant feminist of the time - the film fails to take off and ends up being just another routine comedy.  The film's one saving grace is its cast, headed by a formidable Suzy Prim, who is superb as the leader of a gang of surprisingly vicious harridans pursuing a rescue mission, wreaking havoc in the Parisian underworld as they do so.  The scene in which these elegantly coiffeured beldams interrogate/torment a captured kidnapper in their kitchen recalls a similar scene in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) and whilst it is somewhat funnier (and involves slightly less bodily mutilation) it is still just as disturbing.  "Is this meant to be a comedy?" you ask as one pretty young thing prepares to poke out her captive's eyes.  Louis de Funès's welcome appearance as a likeably nasty hoodlum answers that question in the affirmative, although without his presence you'd be less certain about this.  Les Pépées font la loi may not live up to its premise, and it does tread a thin line between sadism and mirth, but it's canny inversion of gender archetypes does at least set it apart from similar films of its time.

Film Synopsis

Flora finds she has to take the law into her own hands when her daughter Nathalie is kidnapped one day.  Her first thought is that her precious offspring has managed to get herself mixed up in a bothersome drugs trafficking operation, so rather than get onto the police she decides to deal with the matter by herself, assisted by her other three daughters: Elvire, Christine and Elisabeth.  It so happens that Flora was once married to a gangster, so she knows her way around the Parisian underworld.  With the help of her gangland contacts, she manages to inveigle her way into a gang run by someone who calls himself Monsieur Charles.  Flora will not be satisfied with merely rescuing Nathalie.  With her own gang, she intends to inflict a just retribution on the naughty men who have caused her so much inconvenience and worry.  In a man's world, it is the women who should make the laws...