La Bonne soupe (1964)
Directed by Robert Thomas

Film Review

After making his mark on the theatre as a playwright and director, Robert Thomas began his somewhat less distinguished career as a film director with this ebullient comedy, which was the perfect vehicle for rising star Annie Girardot to vaunt her immense comedic talents.  Thomas's main claim to fame is that he authored the award winning stage play Huit femmes, which was adapted as 8 femmes (2001) by François Ozon, but he is also remembered for directing some of the most risible French comedies of the 1980s, including Mon curé chez les nudistes (1982) and Mon curé chez les Thaïlandaises (1983).  His first film as a director is probably his best.

La Bonne soupe is not the most inspired or original of French comedies (it's essentially a Feydeau farce on rollerskates), but equipped with a cast of mouth-watering proportions (Girardot is just the cherry on an exceedingly rich and tasty gâteau), it manages to elevate itself above the mundane and makes a highly enjoyable romp.  With its humorous account of one woman's dizzying ascent up the social ladder, which she achieves by seducing and exploiting any unsuspecting male who comes her way, the film passes muster as a feminist satire and presages Girardot's later association with strong-willed pro-feminist roles.

Here Annie Girardot heads a stellar cast in which her older self is played by an equally charismatic Marie Bell, who manages to be both funny and moving in one of her last screen roles.  (The sequence in which the younger Marie-Paul says farewell to her youth and becomes the older woman, by the simple device of Giradot seeing herself reflected as Bell in a mirror, is an inspired Cocteau-esque touch.)   As Bell recounts her life story to a sprightly Claude Dauphin a succession of vignettes are rolled out, in which Girardot gets close up and personal with some of French cinema's leading lights, an impressive roll call that includes Daniel Gélin, Bernard Blier, Jean-Claude Brialy, Raymond Pellegrin and Gérard Blain, with singer Sacha Distel showing up briefly in one of his few film appearances.  La Bonne soupe may be a minor entry in Girardot's dazzling filmography but it is a film in which she gives one of her liveliest performances, a delight for anyone who cannot get enough of her unique comedy persona.

Film Synopsis

Marie Paule lives for the moment in Cannes and has a regular place at the casino, where she squanders what little remains of her money.  Her beauty may be fading but she is still attractive and knows that the billionaire John Montasy has an eye on her.  One day, she loses all her money and ends up having to sell her jewels.  The casino manager, Mr Oscar, is interested to find out more about Marie Paule.  So she begins to tell him the story of her extraordinary love life, which started when she was a young girl living with her mother...