silverauk

Yes, the French were capable of making comedies in the thirties. Look at this one: Le mort en fuite, with its ridiculous title which means that the two main actors will be in great danger at one moment. I liked the scene at the court with Achille Baluchet (the ever-ugly Michel Simon) crying out: "Je suis innocent" and the scene at the military court of Poland (?) where Hector Trignol (a subtle Jules Berry) shouts: "Je n'y comprends rien". His mistress knows him but very well and can even prove who he really is... How he manages to escape I cannot tell you but it has something to do with love and customs examination. The end of the movie delivers us a typical French and thus charming surprise. Life is not always what it could be even when one becomes a celebrity. André Berthomieu gives us here a comedy which could have been written for theatre, it is all amusement without too much mind troubling. The best proof is that the writer Carlo Rim worked along for many years more in French cinema.

The problem of this movie is that the novel by Eça de Queiroz is stronger and put in another country and another time than the movie. Carlos Carrera is going good until the second part of the movie where it all becomes too mixed up. I am not living in Mexico but I think that this movie could not have been made in the Portugal of our time. The question is: does the interpretation of the novel work in the Mexico of the 21th century with its drugs dealers and left-wing priests?

The plot is good and the actors Bronson, General Strelsky (Patrick Mcgee) are good but the movie has gone out of time. One of the weaknesses is that we now know that it is impossible to hypnotise people for an extent of more than 10 years. People just tend to forget and to cure from psychical injuries of the time.