Danielle Darrieux's grandmother has died, and she is left without resources to continue her studies of the law, or even to live. The world, it seems, is filled with men of assorted ages, all ready to prostitute her. On the advice her her friend, Yvette Lebon, and with an old photograph of a baby and the story of a dead woman, she passes herself off as that baby grown up, to the child's father, author Charles Vanel, who abandoned both of them decades ago. Vanel believes her, but he has a suspicious wife in Valentine Tessier, and a secretary, Pierre Mingand, who is much taken with her. She also has a conscience that afflicts her.
It's a nicely offered story from co-scripters Jean Boyer and Henri Decoin, with Decoin directing. And while everyone is good in their roles, 20-year-old Mlle Darrieux is fabulous. After appearing in movies since 1931, she must carry a movie in which she speaks very little, but wears her emotions of tiredness, regret, and passion for abused children on her face and body, and she does so perfectly. The sequence when she first approaches Vanel, and is unable to speak, is followed by another in which she seems to have walked from Versailles to Paris, sleepless and famished, to be given food and drink by a fellow student who wants to bed her. Then she must give give a speech as a defense attorney for another young woman, one who abused the confidence of a mother whose child has died.
1 out of 1 found this helpful