At NYC's FIAF next week: another delectable Sacha Guitry delight, THE STORY OF A CHEAT

Lovers of classic French cinema had better mark their calendar for this coming Tuesday, April 24, when FIAF's New York City branch screens one of cinema/theater-master Sacha Guitry's enduring works, THE STORY OF A CHEAT (Le roman d'un tricheur) from 1936. TrustMovies has come quite late to discovering the films of this fellow, having just recently seen and reviewed his remarkable La Poison. As I noted earlier, and now feel even more strongly, I want to view anything by M. Guitry that I can get my hands on. The filmmaker, shown below, came from theatrical roots, which can be seen and heard in his remarkable dialog and his delightful way with words.

Sophisticated and urbane, Guitry had a grand understanding of humanity's foibles, including not only its need for hypocrisy and denial but also for bonding, beauty and love. He's a satirist who is wonderfully humane but rarely sentimental and never stupid. He sees the irony in just about everything and everyone, and this gives his work a consistent jolt of pleasure and surprise. Don't get too comfortable, he seems to be telling us, because that kick in the ass is just around the corner.

The tale Guitry tell here is one of a late-middle-aged fellow sitting at a little Parisian cafe, writing his memoir (beginning with his life as a child, above, in a family of 12) -- which springs to life as he writes and speaks. Much of the movie is told via narration (there is surprisingly little actual dialog here), and were this narration not so cleverly written and sustained via Guitry's wit and charm, we might grow weary of it. No chance of that.

How the child is suddenly orphaned and why he survives -- it involves thievery and punishment -- ought to be awful and horrifying. In Guitry's hands it is instead delightfully funny and witty, and so we follow this kid as he grows into an adolescent, then a young man and then into full maturity -- as both the "cheat" of the title (above) and yet somehow not quite a cheat at all.

The world is filled with cheats of all types and both sexes, we -- and our narrator -- soon learn, and these involve everyone from the woman with whom he has his first affair to his later jewel-thief mistress (above), and his even later on-paper-only wife (who eventually is to become, unknown to her, his one-night-stand). More of these cheats are female than male -- the men seeming to be the stronger and perhaps more trustworthy sex.
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Based upon the two films I've so far seen, Guitry could be accused of some misogyny, I think, and probably rightly so. He's a child of his time, after all, who perhaps today would have grown out of this, at least somewhat. I may have to correct my views once I've seen more of his work. Even so, this trait does not overpower the many strengths this writer/filmmaker possesses.

Nothing is sacred here: not gambling, not sex, not childhood, not family, and certainly not the Principality of Monaco! Well, maybe friendship. That seems to be something that could stand the test of time. Meanwhile, we have some delightful locations, assignations and peregrinations to enjoy. 

Guitry's sublime sense of irony, his great skill at story-telling, and above all his love of humanity in all its sublime silliness and sadness makes this movie a keeper indeed. How lovely that FIAF is showing the film as part of its CinéSalon series, Classic of French Cinema with Olivier Barrot, the journalist and TV personality.

The Story of A Cheat will screen at FIAF this coming Tuesday, April 24, at 4pm and 7:30, with the talk by M. Barrot scheduled for 6:45pm and open to audiences at both screenings. As usual with CinéSalon, there will be a post-screening wine/beer reception. For more information and/or tickets, simply click here.

For those of you not in the tri-state area or who can't make the FIAF screening, it may be of service to know that the film also exists on DVD via Criterion and its no-frills Eclipse collection and via FilmStruck -- for purchase, rental or streaming. 

Click here for more information.

Sacha Guitry's LA POISON gets The Criterion Collection treatment on Blu-ray & DVD

Sacha Guitry. Hmmm... Of course, you've heard the name of this Russian-born, French playwright/filmmaker/actor. But his actual work...? Not so easily or quickly identified. As much as TrustMovies prides himself on knowing and appreciating French film, he is embarrassed to say that, until viewing LA POISON -- the 1951 film to be released on Blu-ray and DVD this coming week via The Criterion Collection -- he had never actually seen a Guitry movie. All that has now changed, as I plan to lap up each and every film by this fellow that I can find.

La Poison proves an original surprise from its opening credits onward. In those credits, which suddenly move from the usual written-words-on-screen to an in-person appreciation, as M. Guitry -- shown above, center, with two of his actors from the film -- takes the time and trouble to thank each of his actors, as well as his cinematographer, editor, set designer, music composer and every last person who collaborated on the film for their efforts. (He even makes a quick phone call to thank a woman we never see but whose voice we hear in the film.) Guitry also manages to get in a delightful bit of praise for, as well as a dig at, La Comédie-Française, regarding those two actors (Jean Debucourt, left, and Jacques Varennes, who flank him, above.

Because, La Poison is the first and only piece of Guitry I've seen, I must base my ideas and opinion solely on it. From this, I'd say the man had a great gift for witty dialog, smart and subtle satire, and a marvelous appreciation of human hypocrisy combined with a gift for unveiling that hypocrisy in all its varied splendor. His theme here is marriage gone about as sour as marriage can go, which had led to its participants' plans to do away with each other. Hers (Germaine Reuver, above), the poison of the title, is the more standard approach, while his (that great and unique French actor Michel Simon, at left, below) turns out to be something quite different that blossoms and evolves in amazing ways as the plot unfurls.

Guitry's film begins slowly and sweetly, with a look a "typical" French provincial town that turns out to be both typical and not so. The town's priest (Albert Duvaleix, above, right), as in the work of Marcel Pagnol, dispenses as much logic and solid, worthwhile advice, as he does religion, while the town gossip, (Pauline Carton, below), rather than being some mean-spirited bitch, turns out to be pretty smart, as she and the town pharmacist go over the various ailments that plague the citizens, and she compares here own notes regarding a person's character with the prescription given him (or her). This is a scene -- cleverly mixing humor, intelligence and moral ambiguity -- that you will not have encountered.

Once the "murder" plot is set in motion, the pace picks up mightily, as do the film's humor, satire and surprise. How Guitry works out his particular and peculiar "morality" is as smart, shocking and delightful as anything you'll have seen. Tt will have you alternately laughing and gasping, and always alert so as not to miss a single, clever, engaging bit of word play or moral hypothesis.

Performances are all you could want (Guitry clearly knew his actors and what they could accomplish like the back of his hand), and his keen appreciation of what human beings -- including, yes, children -- so often understand and can reveal seem to me pretty extraordinary. (That's Jeanne Fusier-Gir, above center, as the town florist.)

Criterion's new Blu-ray is spectacular indeed. The transfer could hardly look better, competing I should think, with the film's quality at the time of its theatrical release. Supplements include a lovely appreciation of Guitry, his work, and particularly this film, by no less than Olivier Assayas, while the supplementary 24-page booklet includes a fascinating essay by Ginette Vincendeau that details the movies strengths, as well as its misogyny, along with details of Guitry's life and WWII activities. It's a must-read (but see the film first), as is the wonderful obituary on Guitry included here, which was written by François Truffaut.

Arriving on both Blu-ray and DVD from The Criterion Collection this coming Tuesday, August 22, La Poison, in French with English subtitles and running just 85 minutes, will be available for both purchase and rental.