La poison

I thought I'd emptied out the mine of great French directors and then just this week discovered Sacha Guitry and am both overjoyed at the riches on display in this film and bewildered at its lack of recognition. It's as good as any French film I've ever seen: why have I never heard of it before?

Everything about La Poison is charming, thoughtful, cheeky, brave and subversive, from the opening scene of the director walking about the set greeting and thanking everyone (literally everyone) that worked on the film to the hilariously frank courtroom scenes at the end, and every frame of Michel Simon throughout. My God, was there ever such an actor? Only the gorgeously hypnotic ugliness of Charles Laughton would seem to compare.

Like the films of Max Ophuls from the same time, Le Ronde and Le Plaisir, these are grown-up films dealing with God, Sex, Death and Existence with both incontestable beauty and brutal honesty at a time when practically all American film was made for children, and feel to me almost like an alternate timeline in which cinema developed without the censorship of the Hays production code of the 30s onwards, a cinema of genuine poetry and art winning out over puritanism and commerce.

The only American films I can think of from this time that are anything like comparable to La Poison are Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux and Charles Laughton's Night Of The Hunter. Verdoux, a markedly inferior work to this one, got Chaplin hounded out of America for good and Hunter assured Laughton never directed again. Whereas the French loved their great artists and celebrated them for their minds and their magic.

I am reminded too, watching this, how much I prefer the savage and poetic French Old Wave to the empty faddish inanities of the Nouvelle Vague. I will happily take any 20 minutes of La Poison or La Ronde or Boudu Saved From Drowning over every single film by Truffault or Goddard.

This is a practically perfect film in every respect, and the only complaint I can really offer up is that the English subtitles of the two different versions I have found are both not as good as they could be, and with as deliriously barbed dialogue as this, where every line is saying something considered and integral, that's something of a crime in itself.

Guitry could never get over the way he was treated after the Liberation;his "De Jeanne D'Arc A Petain"(1942) (see this title which is never screened on French TV) was not exactly a work longing for freedom and the fact that he was given coal for his town house by the occupying forces led him to a (brief) internment.

Some of his post-war works are bitter,even cynical and made French justice an object of ridicule .If Guitry had been a mediocre director/writer ,his latter days works could have sunk into oblivion ,the work of an aging embittered old duffer ;but Guitry was a master ,with wit ,humor and (yes) genius going for him .At the time,only Henri Jeanson could write as well as he did .

"la Poison" begins with a presentation of all the people who made the movie (proof positive that Guitry was neither self-centered nor ungrateful) ;it was not the first time he had done this ,but this time ,he speaks with the actors,the technicians ,the script girl and it lasts about five minutes .Guitry was the one director in France to show such respect for his collaborators.

It was the first time he had directed Michel Simon ,who is another genius ,one of our five best actors ever .They would team up again in another Guitry's masterpiece ,"La Vie D'Un Honnête Homme " -for the record ,Louis De Funès ,who has a small role in "Poison" ,is in that movie too-If they would redo (God preserve us!) ,I really wonder WHO could reprise this part.Simon is so subtle an actor he is able to show all the tragic side of his character ;the scenes when he eats his dinner with his missus ,an alcoholic shrew, with the radio on so they do not have to talk are sheer genius .

Even the scenes which would seem at first out of place are necessary : the villagers waiting for a miracle,asking the vicar for help ("I can only pray ";and God heard him and took heed of it)At the time , the vicar ,with his servant (La Bonne Du Curé) played a prominent part and he was the local shrink ;Simon visits him before consulting a lawyer.

All the scenes featuring the lawyer are Guitry at his very best ;if you are sick and tired of those movies in which the brilliant lawyer always wins ,"La Poison" was made for you.Reductio Ad Absurdum that justice is unfair and that if you want to be acquitted ,you need a piece of advice from the man of law before you act .As if it were not enough,the children have their own trial too.

Guitry's hatred for justice is even more glaring in his overlooked "Assassins Et Voleurs" .People who liked "La Poison" must see it too.

The everyday life of Paul Braconnier (played by the famous Michel Simon) and his wife Blandine (Germaine Reuver) is far from what one would describe as a marital bliss. Paul Braconnier reproaches her that she's old and ugly and that she drinks too much. They hate each other as much as they possibly can - to the point that they want to murder each other. One day, Paul Braconnier hears about the champion lawyer Maitre Aubanel (played by Jean Debucourt) who just won his 100th case. Paul decided to promptly visit him to know how he can kill his wife without going to jail. Delighted to hear that murder without consequences is possible, he decides to stab his wife when she is about to poison him. With a lawyer like Aubanel, he is certain to get away with his crime. What follows is probably the funniest trial sequence in film history.

'La poison' is the funniest movie that Sacha Guitry made after WWII. As always in the work of Sacha Guitry, this story is a satire of marriage. This black comedy is delightful due to the performance of Michel Simon (once more!) in this role of a colorful rogue and to the high standard comical writing of Sacha Guitry. The name of the main character (Braconnier, which is the French word for poacher) was not chosen randomly: it is a description of the attitude that the main character has throughout the movie, i.e. that of a character behaving against the law. The tone of the movie is definitively anarchist and the character played by Michel Simon is not far from that of Boudu (another great performance by Michel Simon in 'Boudu sauve des eaux by Jean Renoir, 1932).

Guitry adds to our pleasure by introducing the complete credited cast during the opening sequence (much alike Orson Welles introducing his actors in the movie Othello and in the trailer of Citizen Kane) congratulating Michel Simon for his acting. Louis de Funes (at this time not as popular as he would be more than a decade later) can be seen in a small role. Pauline Carton (who played in most of Sacha Guitry movies) is present as well.

This movie is a gem. Highly recommended. 10/10.

Michel Simon is married to Germaine Reuver and they hate each other. He complains about her to everyone in town. One night, he hears Jean Debucourt on the radio. Debucourt is a lawyer who has won his hundredth acquittal and is interviewed on the subject. So Simon goes to the lawyer and confesses that he has killed his wife, draws out the details of how he has done it -- with an eye towards acquittal -- and goes home to kill her. When Debucourt shows up, Simon proceeds to blackmail the lawyer into mounting his defense in this excessively funny black comedy from Sacha Guitry.

If you want someone to play a monster and yet be very human and funny, you could never do any better than Michel Simon. Watching his ego grow, from that of a man frightened to go home to one lecturing judges in court, he makes everyone his straight man, thanks to Guitry's script (obviously written for his star's talents).

Guitry offers his credits in an unusual manner: he strolls around the set, complimenting his major collaborators, who appear as themselves -- although a couple who are heard only over the radio are thanked over the phone. It's a thoroughly theatrical invention from an artist who straddled stage and screen.

Several years ago, I saw and enjoyed "A Crime in Paradise". However, I knew it was a remake and wanted to see the original. I was thrilled when the Criterion Channel added it recently...and it turned out to be every bit as good as the remake...perhaps a bit better.

The beginning of the movie is most unusual. The writer and director, Sacha Guitry, introduces the cast and crew...and has a short thank you speech for every one of them!

When the story begins, Paul Braconnier (Michel Simon) is complaining to the priest about his ugly wife. She drinks constantly and is a loathsome person...and he's sick of her. Later, Paul listens to a talk show on the radio and a very successful defense attorney is talking about his career defending murderers. Paul likes what the guy says and realizes that this attorney should defend him...when he actually gets around to murdering his wife!

Soon, Paul shows up at the attorney's office and tells her he's just killed his wife. The fact is, Paul hasn't yet done it...he just wants to figure out how best to do it in order to be acquitted in court! Well, the lawyer doesn't know that and inadvertently helps Paul formulate the murder!

Paul goes home and plans on killing his wife. What he doesn't know is that she is also planning on poisoning him...and he ends up killing her before he drinks the poison she's given him! Soon, he's in court...and all his neighbors come to speak on his behalf...because apparently, they also couldn't stand her! So what comes of all this? See the film.

This is a super dark comedy...so much so that I am certain many won't enjoy it or will find it a bit unseemly. I thought it was of course dark, but also funny and clever....and well worth seeing. Well crafted and worth your time.