La Vie d'un honnête homme (1953)
Directed by Sacha Guitry

Film Review

As he neared the end of his prolific career as a writer and director, Sacha Guitry expressed, through his work, an increasing sense of pessimism and disillusionment with the world, particularly the self-satisfied bourgeois milieu that he inhabited.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in La Vie d'un honnête homme , a dark moralist work - albeit one with some brilliant comic touches - which reflects what Guitry saw as an increasingly hypocritical, soulless and unjust world. What is perhaps surprising is that the film's author offers no easy solution - you either live with the system or you disappear into obscurity. There can be no happy ending in such a cosmos as this.

Guitry's barely contained venom is directed principally at the bourgeoisie, whose behaviours (habitual deceit, manipulation and selfishness) reveal a sickening moral vacuity - in which Guitry presumably feels he is in part complicit.   The film may not be Guitry's greatest technical achievement, but it is certainly among his most enjoyable and thought-provoking works.  There are some memorable jokes, but the comedy does not detract from the seriousness of the underlying point that Guitry is making, namely that middle class society stinks.

As ever, Sacha Guitry is well served by his technical crew and cast.  Jean Bachelet's moody photography is redolent of the poetic realist style of the 1930s and makes a welcome change from the bland, characterless look that most French films of the 1950s had.  Michel Simon is remarkable in the double role of the two twin brothers - his skill in delineating the two characters showing what an extraordinarily talented actor he was.  Much of the impact of this film stems from the pathos and humanity that Simon brings to his performance.  Hanging onto Simon's coat tails you can hardly fail to notice another actor with talent - Louis de Funès in one of his early roles (and with a full head of hair), many years before he became the most popular comic actor in France.   The icing on this particular gâteau is the nocturnal serenade sung by Marcel Mouloudji (an actor who became a popular singer in France) - sequences that add an exquisite touch of poetry to what is assuredly one of Sacha Guitry's best films.

Film Synopsis

Through a combination of hard work and ruthlessness, Albert Ménard-Lacoste has become a wealthy businessman, although his austerity prevents him from being loved, even by his family.   One day, he is confronted by his worst nightmare in the form of his estranged brother Alain, who is his polar opposite - an easy-going, penniless drifter.  Albert's first reaction is to dismiss Alain from his sight.  But then he has a change of heart and drops in on the shabby lodgings where Alain is living.  Albert is about to offer his brother a job when the latter suffers a fatal heart-attack.  Immediately, the cunning businessman sees a way to make a fresh start and perhaps settle a few scores with his family.  He swaps his clothes with Alain and assumes the dead man's identity.  Little by little, Albert's eyes are opened to the shallowness of his erstwhile life and to the grotesque hypocrisies of his everyday existence…