Tout va très bien madame la marquise (1936)

The song by Ray Ventura was one of the biggest hits in France before the war;it's still popular even today and its title (everything's all right ,Madam)is used by the French when everything is going ...wrong!The words to the song tell the story of a marquise's misfortunes:away from her valuable property,she learns through a phone call the death of her gray mare,the destruction of her stables and of her castle in a fire,and the ruin and the suicide of her husband ;but ,the servant says, apart from this,everything's all right! The movie,made to capitalize on the huge success of the song ,has little to do with it,except for the first five minutes when the marquise (Marguerite Moreno) "lives" what happens in the song.

Critics do not speak highly of this film today,calling it a pure dud .I would rather call it a guilty pleasure,cause it is extremely funny and it reveals the way the Parisians saw the Brittons at the time ;in the comics,they were represented by Bécassine ,a bubble head servant with an IQ of about 40;in this movie they are pig ignorant :the guide who tells the tourists Agnès Sorel -who lived in Joan of Arc time- came in Brittany in 1866;his depiction of the dolmens and the standing stones ;Ploumenech (Noel Noel ,with a false nose)a naive Britton (for the Parisians ,it was a pleonasm) who comes to the capital to make his fortune in music hall:he's been hired by a music hall owner to play the part of a separatist in an extravaganza which is sheer Parisian bad taste.The moron also meets his sister ,supposedly working as a servant in a desirable mansion;she's actually the owner of the house,having made her way of life as a prostitute ,a specialist in wealthy men;and of course the brother hasn't got a clue.

Definitely no food for thought but often hilarious!