Sois belle et tais-toi (1958)
Directed by Marc Allégret

Film Review

Marc Allégret's film career never recovered from the media brouhaha he stirred up in 1955 with his daring adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.  Reviled by the critics, particularly those who went on to engender the French New Wave, Allégret spent the last decade of his long and prolific filmmaking career casually churning out tepid crowdpleasers, none of which bears any comparison with the noteworthy offerings of his early decades - Fanny (1932), Lac aux dames (1934) and Félicie Nanteuil (1945).  Sois belle et tais-toi (a.k.a. Blonde for Danger) typifies his desultory late output, a pretty anodyne and formulaic example of the comédie policière genre that was popular with audiences in France in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.  The film was originally conceived and scripted by Roger Vadim as a vehicle for his wife Brigitte Bardot (who had previously featured in Allégret's En effeuillant la marguerite), but when she declined (after divorcing Vadim) it passed to the less well-known but equally photogenic Mylène Demongeot, who soon acquired a massive cult following through her part in the Louis de Funès Fantômas series of films of the mid-1960s.  The actress had made a fleeting appearance in Allégret's earlier film Futures vedettes (1955).

Demongeot is not the only talented and charismatic newcomer that saved Sois belle et tais-toi from the total oblivion it probably deserves as a chronically limp comedy thriller.  Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo appeared together in the film (the third screen appearance for both actors), just a few years before they rocketed to international stardom - Delon in René Clément's Plein soleil (1960), Belmondo in Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (1960).  At the time, French film heart-throb Henri Vidal was by far the best-known name in the cast, although sadly it would be one of his last film roles as he died just 18 months after the film's release in 1958, at the age of 40.  Two other notable additions to the cast-list are Roger Hanin and Darry Cowl, who would both enjoy enormous mainstream popularity in the following decade, Hanin through his muscle-man roles (notably in the Gorille and Tigre series), Cowl as a madcap comedy performer from the same school of egregious chumpishness as Jerry Lewis and Norman Wisdom.

Despite the best efforts of veteran cinematographer Armand Thirard, Sois belle et tais-toi is a drab and characterless production that has none of the visual appeal of similar French comedy thrillers of this era.  In fact, it looks and feels like the cheapest and dreariest of B-movie pastiches.  Unlike Gilles Grangier's Le Cave se rebiffe (1961) and Georges Lautner's Les Tontons flingueurs (1963) the film has very little to commend it, apart from the impressive acting ensemble that is criminally ill-served by a truly dismal script and Allégret's uncharacteristically uninspired direction.  Whatever charm the film has is largely down to its dazzling lead performers Demongeot and Vidal, who make it just about worth watching in spite of the absence of a credible storyline and the shocking abundance of lazily tossed out well-worn clichés.  The first screen pairing of the French cinema icons Delon and Belmondo confer on Sois belle et tais-toi an accidental historical significance it scarcely deserves.  The two actors would share the credits on a further seven films over the following four decades, their most highly rated collaboration being on Jacques Deray's classic gangster film Borsalino (1970).

Film Synopsis

After escaping from a strict Catholic reform school, Virginie Dumaillet goes on the run and ends up joining a gang of adolescent petty criminals led by a wild young hoodlum named Loulou.  They steal a car which was earlier used in a jewellery robbery on the Place Vendôme and are pursued across town by the police.  Virginie surrenders herself to the cops to allow her friends to escape.  In police custody, the rebellious young woman is befriended by Inspector Jean Morel, who pretends to be a crook to gain her confidence.  Morel believes that Virginie will lead him to the mastermind behind the jewellery theft, a notorious villain named Charlemagne.  When Virginie discovers that she is being duped, she threatens to make a formal complaint to the authorities.  His hand forced, Morel has no choice but to marry her.  Even when she is married to a cop, Virginie still intends to help out her former criminal friends, unaware that they are being used by Charlemagne to smuggle his stolen jewellery out of the country in everyday cameras.  When Morel gets wind of the operation he immediately suspects that his young wife is implicated in it and arranges a trap.  The real culprits are soon exposed and Morel is able to make his arrests.