La chaleur du sein

...and you'll understand that three mothers do not replace a good father.If you think it's misogyny ,you miss the point.The screenplay puts the blame on the absent father.

They often say Jean Boyer was a drudge ,but there are ,in his huge production (about 40 or 50 films) ,now and then,some entertaining comedies,the best of which remaining his priceless "Circonstances Attenuantes" featuring Michel Simon and Arletty who had teamed up the year before for "la Chaleur du Sein".

"La chaleur du Sein" is a gleeful mess ,a cock-and-bull story involving a self-conscious boy,his three mothers (his biological one died when he was born),his father, an Egyptologist on his way back home on a luxury liner ,an old English spinster who is crazy about him, table tennis,hieroglyphs, an idiotic song ("the little pigs " a ditty which might be double-entendre for people with a dirty mind),you name it.

Michel Simon and Arletty have only one or two scenes together,that's the biggest disappointment of an entertaining movie.Historian Jean Tulard told that Boyer could have been a great director ,had he forgotten the cash register .His film has sometimes strange accents ,it even verges on tragedy:his young hero committed suicide (but he failed) ,and his best friend (François Périer in a single scene) lost both his father and his mother when he was seven.And the fact that he has to get used to three different (over-possessive) mothers has a strange contemporary feel,in our times when one gets married and gets divorced at the speed of sound.

Marguerite Moreno almost steals the show from Arletty,in her part of the wealthy English woman who sticks like a leech.

Jean Boyer's writing and directorial career spanned over thirty years but sadly his films failed to draw much attention outside his native France. Here he has served up a delicious trifle containing the finest ingredients notably Arletty, Michel Simon, Gabrielle Dorziat, Marguerite Moreno and Pierre Larquey. Despite being an unholy bore an Egyptologist played by Simon has managed to accrue four wives the first of whom has died. Whilst he is away his biological son commits a serious indiscretion and his three surviving wives descend and start playing 'mother' with mixed results! Father returns home to realise how neglectful he has been. The secret of this piece is in the playing of it. Boyer maintains 'allegro vivace' throughout and we have a masterclass in comedic timing for those lucky enough to appreciate it.