The Virgin Bride (1937) User Reviews

Wicked Stepmother

[writers_reign · 9/10 · 17 January 2008]

Here's one for trivia buffs: What links Le Roi Soleil, Miss Adelaide from Guys and Dolls and Jacqueline Letournel from Mademoiselle, Ma Mere. Gee, I thought you'd never ask. Answer: The number fourteen. Le Roi Soleil was Louis the fourteenth (as in, my furniture goes back to Louis the fourteenth; I don't pay by the fourteenth it goes straight back to Louis), Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls has been engaged to Nathan Detroit for fourteen years and Jacqueline in Mademoiselle, Ma Mere has, despite her tender years, been engaged fourteen times. Each time, to the chagrin of her father (Marcel Simon) it has gone tits up and her father's constant nagging is getting on the poitrines of Jacqueline who solves the problem by buying a white dress, hiring a church and marrying fifty-something Albert Letournal (Andre Alerme) as you would. Monsieur Letournal, however, comes complete with a twenty-five year old son, Georges, in the shape of Pierre Brasseur, still, in the thirties, being cast as romantic leads and getting away with them in spite of a set of features more suited to the gallery of heavies he went on to portray. We now have what the CIA likes to call a 'situation', two young people striking sparks off each other and a gooseberry who just happens to be married to one and the father of the other. Present this scenario to Gene O'Neill and you wind up with a Greek Tragedy and Gene duly obliged with Desire Under The Elms but O'Neill of course was Irish and 'black' Irish at that, in France they do things differently and I for one am so glad. Danielle Darrieux (Jacqueline) makes a seriously wicked stepmother by which I mean the kind you could eat with a spoon as opposed to the kind that slips a Mickey into the Golden Delicious when Snow White is looking the other way but the script dictates that Georges (Brasseur) remains indifferent to her adorability until the last possible minute. This is yet another triumph for the director-actress team of Henri Decoin and Danielle Darriux with a screenplay by Jean Boyer who also wrote Abuse de Confiance for the same team and wrote and directed Chaleur du sein for Arletty so strong credits all round. This is one I will watch with pleasure again and again.

Mother is still a Miss.

[dbdumonteil · 1 October 2015]

"Miss ,my mother" you read well : a spoiled girl,20 ,a wealthy man's daughter who buys a yacht as I buy a bike ,chooses to marry the first to come:it happens to be a fifty-something greybeard (Pierre Larquey);and she also gets a stepson,25 , a medical student (Pierre Brasseur),who pretends he hates her and has her followed by a private detective (hence the title).As my good friend Writer's Reign aptly wrote ,this could lead to Greek tragedy,a la Phaedra.But it belongs to Henry Decoin's first period ,when he was making light comedies before brilliantly turning film noir master .

This one suffers from a predictable screenplay ,not in a league with "Abus De Confiance " ,"Battements De Coeur" or "Retour A l'Aube",the latter displaying Decoin's first foray into Film Noir.However, Miss Darrieux ,as the capricious Virgin who refuses to consummate her wedding and Pierre Brasseur whose family's honor is at stake and thus studies mental derangement,make a nice pair.