La poison

Sacha Guitry is not a movie director, let alone a screenwriter. Guitry claims so in the opening credits sequence: "I daresay this is stage play." As for me this kind of heavy-handed foreword is out of place in a movie. "L'auteur, bien entendu" shows off and introduce us to the whole cast starting with a grand praise of Michel Simon. The monologue is good but Guitry is insufferably pedantic while we're supposed to get in the movie. Yet I admit this clunky device worked for Le Roman d'un tricheur, but only because 1/Guitry was the lead 2/he played a lifelong cheat and 3/he told us his life in a series of flashbacks.

Now La Poison would have been really poor indeed were it not for Michel Simon's talent. Once Sacha Guitry lets the movie start it rolls up pretty good. The satirical tone tends to be heavy but with Michel Simon playing at times borderline dramatic that sets a good balance... until the movie gets clunky again. Michel Simon has a very good scene with his presumptive lawyer followed by an awfully serious one involving the lawyer and the visiting general attorney. There you can see that the movie needs Michel Simon as a driving force (and Germaine Reuver as the main resulting force of course) : that's a very low and overstretched point made just before the climax. The Climax: Guitry shoots it quite on the nose but the scene is so meaningful it doesn't require much more.

The problem is after the climax the movie has nowhere to go. The satirical tone? It was good enough for the setup but it keeps playing like it's a light comedy (I'm sorry but satirical tone + murder doesn't necessarily make a dark comedy). So the people from the village keep playing the regular types they were assigned to and the trial is totally farcical. There you can only regret that the lawyer's part had been so blatantly undersized. As for Michel Simon if you let him become too strong a character he will overshadow everyone in the scene. And that's what happens: from the climax down to its end La Poison errs and cannot make up for Guitry's poor cinematographic vision.

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.

This is a minor masterpiece. It is Guitry at his most cynical - and that's saying a great deal. Michel Simon's wife, presented as a perpetual drunk, has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The fact that she buys rat poison to do away with her husband, who appears to have no grievous faults, doesn't help her case any. Michel Simon delivers a truly first-rate performance as the husband. You don't feel that he's justified in killing his wife, but you certainly don't feel any regret that he does. Guitry's script, which treats husband-wife relations as a joke to be ridiculed, is delightful in an extremely cynical way. Misanthropy at its finest - whatever that may be.

----------------------------------------

I watched this movie again tonight, and I marveled - and laughed - at the cynical genius of so much of it. The script is often brilliant, yes, but it is Michel Simon who makes it all work. His every scene is wonderful, but the scene with the lawyer after he has killed his wife, and then the trial scene, are devastatingly marvelous. This is a movie that could have great success as an American remake, updated - but who now could play the Michel Simon part?

If you can deal with so realistic and cynical a view of human nature, you owe it to yourself to see this masterpiece. You may think you're cynical, but you will realize you have nothing on Sacha Guitry when it comes to cynicism.

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.

In an opening credits segment that's certainly original, writer-director Sacha Guitry appears in front of the camera and personally greets the actors and the rest of the crew who worked in this film. At one point, he mentions that he still sees film as theater (where he began his career), and you can tell - there are long scenes with two people sitting opposite each other talking, which on one hand allows you to admire the wit of the dialogue (the more French you pick up, probably the better), on the oher hand it makes the film feel sometimes talky and belabored. With that said, in other aspects "La Poison" is definitely ahead of its time - especially in the uncompomising, merciless blackness of its comedy. I doubt anyone in Hollywood could get away with this type of ending in 1951 (they could, for a while, before 1934 and the Code). Look out for a young Louis de Funès with plenty of hair! **1/2 out of 4.