french films > Drôle de drame

Drôle de drame

Drôle de drame

Drôle de drame

Review score: * * * * *

cast: Michel Simon, Louis Jouvet, Françoise Rosay

year: 1937

colour: yes

certificate:

director: Marcel Carné

runtime: 110

In Victorian London, the botanist Irwin Molyneux and his wife Margaret Molyneux are bankrupted but still keeping the appearance due to the successful crime novels written by Irwin under the pseudonym of Felix Chapel.

Their cook has just left the family, when Irwin's snoopy and hypocrite cousin Archibald Soper that is in campaign against the police stories of Felix Chapel invites himself to have dinner in Irwin's house. Margaret decides to keep the farce of their social position secretly cooking the dinner, while the clumsy Irwin justifies her absence telling the bishop Soper that she had just traveled to the country to meet some friends.

However Soper suspects of Irwin and calls the Scotland Yard, assuming that his cousin had poisoned his wife. Irwin and Margaret decide to hide the truth to avoid an exposition of their financial situation, moving to a low-budget hotel in the Chinese neighborhood, getting into trouble. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Irwin Molyneux, an austere botanist, and Margaret, his spendthrift, conceited wife, are in trouble: their cook has just left them without notice.

And this is just the time chosen by Archibald Soper, bishop of Bedford and Irwin's cousin, to invite himself to dinner.

Margaret decides to cook the meal herself but Soper, a greedy, sanctimonious zealot, must not know about this degrading situation, which is why she asks Irwin to make his importunate guest believe that she has left home for a while. Archibald, who just preached against a crime story writer called Chapel and who is nervous because a killer roams the neighboring streets, gets suspicious when Irwin babbles vague answers to his questions about Margaret's absence.

Jumping to conclusions, he is persuaded that Irwin has murdered his wife and informs the police. Now, it happens that Felix Chapel and Irwin Molyneux are the same person. Unfortunate Irwin finds himself accused of poisoning his wife, just like in one of his detective stories...

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