Black and White (1931)

It was the first takies ;most of the French movies looked like filmed stage productions ; neither Marc Allégret nor Robert Florey (who would make "the beast with five fingers later on) is able to really transfer a play to the screen ; it will take the playwright himself to do his plays justice .

This play has not worn well ;that the first baby is never shown speaks volumes about the thirties zeitgeist ; the film is not really racy :after all ,the heroine , wanted to take revenge on her husband ,always away for his would be business, and she had chosen the bell boy (Fernandel ,a virgin lad who asks his first lover how to go about making love) ;but in the dark ,she makes the fatal mistake .

Not racy,but downright racist and do not get me wrong : I love Guitry's tremendous wit ,but would you show this old hat stuff to a black friend? You certainly wouldn't ,not only for the way everyone treats the baby ,but also for the offensive words galore.It's another era , OK , but it does not make up for the bad taste and some hints (there are plenty of "those" babies in state care);the ending is distastefully bourgeois ,which is all the more infuriating since you know how great the denouements were in Guitry's works ("le roman d'un tricheur" notably)