Le Septième ciel (1958)
Directed by Raymond Bernard

Film Review

Sometimes a movie will offer the viewer an alternate title (e.g. Juliette ou le clé des songes) and whilst we are not given this choice here we may be tempted to come up with Seventh Heaven or Strychnine and Chanel. Instead of two old ladies offing gents with nothing to lose and getting their brother to bury them we are faced with one drop-dead gorgeous forty year old doing the same thing and allowing a friend (rather than a brother) to take care of interment.  For good measure there's also a gangster element in both films.

Even Godard and Truffaut combined couldn't make Danielle Darrieux look ordinary and this is far too entertaining for either of them to even contemplate.  Darrieux was, of course an international success, whereas co-star Noël-Noël was strictly domestic and would be unjustly forgotten even in France by now were it not for the international hit Les Choristes, which was a remake of the 1945 film La Cage aux rossignols (in which with Noël-Noël played the Gérard Jugnot role).  Here, he provides a perfect foil for Darrieux.

The gangster takes the form of Gérard Oury, who not only went on to become a fine director but also sired one of the finest French screen writers/directors in Danièle Thompson.  As if this wasn't enough we also have the great Paul Meurisse and, to round things off, an audacious nod to both Prévert and Les Visiteurs du soir in the last shot.  A delightful soufflé.

Film Synopsis

In the small town of Houblonnes, Brigitte de Ledouville is admired for her good causes.  She gives money away freely to those who need it, and no one seems to be remotely curious as to where her immense wealth comes from.  This is just as well because Brigitte's method of obtaining money is somewhat unorthodox.  With the help of her loyal secretary Guillaume Lestrange she lures her wealthy admirers to her house and then gently sends them off to the next world.  Their decomposing remains help to replenish her flowerbeds and their personal riches are soon being diverted towards charitable ends, such as founding a badly needed hospital in South Africa.

So far Brigitte has happily murdered and fleeced ten men, and she might well have continued in the same vein were it not for the sudden arrival in the town of Maurice Portal, a professional swindler, and his accomplice Xavier Laurentis.  Lestrange's attempts to con Portal into buying a thriving hostelry for a derisory sum go awry when Portal runs off with the money loaned to him by a man named Manuel Vila.  The latter's attempts to recover his money inevitably lead him to Madame de Ledouville's doorstep.  It is not long before the crafty Vila discovers Brigitte's dark secret.  Fortunately, her garden is large enough to accommodate a few more bodies...