His wife having died in an auto accident, banker Jean Gabin is is on his way to throw himself into the Seine, when he meets his former housemaid, Mireille Darc, who informs him that he was multiply cuckolded. Eventually the two of them wind up as butler father and maid daughter in a rich, provincial household, while his nasty in-laws try to prove him dead so they can inherit.
It's pretty much standard bedroom farce of the classes, from a play by Claude Gével , with the film directed by financially successful Communist director Jean Paul Le Chanois. It's all very amusing, but as you might expect, it's all carried on the shoulders of Gabin, who shifts gears from banker to criminal mastermind to impeccable butler without missing a breath, even though his dinner may burn on the kitchen stove. As good farce should be, it's directed for speed. You've seen its like a dozen times and you may be pretty bored, but Gabin is one of those performers who can read the phone book and I'll applaud.
It's pretty much standard bedroom farce of the classes, from a play by Claude Gével , with the film directed by financially successful Communist director Jean Paul Le Chanois. It's all very amusing, but as you might expect, it's all carried on the shoulders of Gabin, who shifts gears from banker to criminal mastermind to impeccable butler without missing a breath, even though his dinner may burn on the kitchen stove. As good farce should be, it's directed for speed. You've seen its like a dozen times and you may be pretty bored, but Gabin is one of those performers who can read the phone book and I'll applaud.