Docteur Laennec

Maurice Cloche 's precedent movie, was "Monsieur Vincent ",a movie about the life of Saint Vincent De Paul ,who spent his life helping the poor and the sick : "Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." (see Matthew 25: 34-40).

It was only natural that Cloche's next movie was devoted to another great man ,Doctor Laennec ;Pierre Blanchar who portrayed him had always a tendency to grandiloquence but here the movie did not suffer for it. His overacting made wonders in Duvivier 's 'un carnet de bal", Raymond Bernard's "le coupable" and the based-on-Russian -works such as "la dame de pique" and "crime et châtiment".

As Laennec was a religious man, the recurring picture with big crucifix are relevant ;the biopic anyway verges to hagiography but it does not overshadow the experimental ,scientific side of the story ; it's true that it's children's playing who leads to his great discovery he called the "pectoriloque" ,the stethoscope which was to become the distinguishing feature of the thespian; it was then a simple paper roll tied by a string,but it paved a reliable way to the treatment of tuberculosis .

Le film does not pass over in silence his colleagues ' opposition ;the mime show in front of the doctor himself echoes to one of the first scene showing a charlatan ,yelling on his stage ;Maurice Cloche's directing is better than his generally bad reputation ; when he learns -a thing he already knew- he is terminally-ill from a colleague ,he becomes obsessed by time left to him (I've got to hurry) : the next picture is a clock ; clocks become omnipresent on the pictures and sometimes a ticking is heard.

"Monsieur Vincent " and "Docteur Laennec " can be considered Cloche's best ;his adaptation of Alphonse Daudet's "le petit chose" is not bad either;