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Vie de mariée, the camera pans from a window glimpse of a bustling Parisian street to the husband (Daniel Gélin) pensive by the piano then dollies to the wife (Anne Vernon) scrubbing the bathtub. (A quick joke early on sketches their bond, he's late getting a flower before the shop closes and she kisses him before practically shoving him down the stairs.) Her uncle (Jean Galland) has a gala recital planned at his mansion, getting dressed is half the fun, a missing waistcoat is all the haughty cousin (Jacques François) needs to detect trouble in paradise. "So the great artist has a wardrobe malfunction." One evening, two sets, more than enough for Jacques Becker to serve up a miniature La Règle du jeu. The musician's cherished dictionaries make a handy footstool for the missus, who slices off the front of her gown to keep à la mode. Class matters, introduction into the social whirl, fable of the seamstress and the rich lady. The young doyenne (Elina Labourdette) is married to an American businessman (William Tubbs) who shades wisdom into grouchiness, cf. Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives. A single slap can upend a whole marriage, the fellow medicates himself at the party with cocktail after cocktail while back home the lass packs her bags and writes a divorce letter. "Merde, merde, merde" on the fancy phone, echoing the host's byword, "parfait, parfait, parfait." Games socialites play, "I haven't been given a script, and I don't improvise." Brahms and Chopin earn polite applause (and the Yank's thumbs-up) but only the Jarabe Tapatío gets everybody jumping, the opening movement is repeated in reverse at the close following a note from McCarey's The Awful Truth. "Talk about a bohemian lifestyle!" With Betty Stockfeld, Jean Toulout, Yvette Lucas, Jean Riveyre, Hélène Duc, and Grégoire Gromoff. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |