The healers,the quack doctors ,have always been around;on a large scale, you have Rasputin -who had real powers-,on a smaller one ,you have the charlatan (or the healer with certain powers)) on the block or in the village.
In 1953 ,Yves Ciampi's "Le Guérisseur " failed totally to convince ,in spite of a good cast ;by making his "healer" a fallen (but true) physician ,Ciampi produced a heavy-handed melodrama in which the dice were loaded.
The following year ,Maurice Labro reprized the same subject ,but treated it as a comedy;not much food for thought,and no more convincing than Ciampi's effort,but funnier!
Leguignon (Yves Deniaud) discovers he's got a gift by healing a cat .He tries his hand at human beings and he is very successful ,and the patients flock ,much to the physicians' and vets' displeasure :it's unfair competition,no less.And the healer's daughter is to marry a physician's son .
A thoroughly uneducated man,Leguignon,without a single diploma ,relieves the sufferings and his wife (Jane Marken)makes a packet off her hubby's gift.Pretty soon,the thespians sue the naive meek guy.
The critics wrote it was "bad old cinema" ,but they cannot deny there are lines which hit home and hilarious scenes:
-the trial ,in which the defendant ,who does not always the understand the law jargon,exasperates his judges and his lawyer who desperately tries to save his client:" who cares if the sick was not "legally "healed provided he is healed?"
-the wealthy uncle whose family hopes to inherit and thus are not happy to see him healthier.
