Henri Verneuil made no less than eight films with Fernandel which proves that Verneuil possessed the patience of a saint.
This is their second and is both a tender and touching variation on the theme of a menopausal married man's affair with a younger woman that is of course destined to end in tears. Fernandel as the smitten Docteur Pellegrin engages our sympathy, the forbidden fruit is played by the suitably delicious Francoise Arnoul whilst Claude Nollier is perfectly cast as his elegant if rather glacial wife and the always-good-value Sylvie plays his mother. All-in-all an engaging film marked by customary Gallic taste and restraint.
The major problem, for this viewer at any rate, is that Georges Simenon's dark and deeply personal novel 'Letter to my Judge' in which a doctor and his far from attractive mistress are involved in a complex relationship marked by obssessive jealousy and violence which leads him to strangle her and commit suicide in the prison infirmary, has here been reduced to a love triangle-cum-domestic drama.
The reasons for such an anodyne treatment are understandable as the husband's return to wife and family would satisfy the moral requirements of the time and not least serve to maintain Fernandel's much-loved persona. He was all too aware of his image and the very idea of playing a convicted murderer/suicide would have been anathema both to him and to the audience he sought to please. Probably true to say that based on the principle of 'horses for courses', this artiste would anyway have been totally unsuited to such a role.
As a vehicle for the appealing Fernandel this adaptation is fine as far as it goes but it is to be regretted that an opportunity has been missed and one cannot help but wonder how Simenon's explosive material would have turned out with either Gabin or Simon in the leading role and Autant-Lara or Duvivier in the director's chair.
