La honorable Catalina

L'Honorable Catherine, with Edwige Feuillère and Raymond Rouleau, is a romantic comedy in the American screwball style. One thinks of 1941's The Lady Eve with Stanwyck and Fonda. Of course, French audiences under the Occupation were unable to see that movie, or any other American film, so French cinema had to produce its own alternatives.

This was one of the most successful of the ersatz Hollywood comedies produced during the Occupation. It has all the requisite ingredients: sharp, sophisticated dialogue, a dash of slapstick, the meet-cute, the inventive plot, and the love-hate relationship between two charismatic leads: Feuillère as a high society blackmailer and Rouleau as her latest victim. When her blackmail attempt is interrupted, Feuillère has to pose as Rouleau's lover, and the set-up is in place for the comic misunderstandings that ensue.

Director Marcel L'Herbier and Edwige Feuillère handle the comedy for the most part with charm and nimbleness. Feuillère is such good fun that one regrets that she didn't play more comedies in her career. Rouleau is less satisfactory. He overplays the humour where he should be underplaying, which becomes tiresome.

If L'Honorable Catherine doesn't quite live up to the promise of the very enjoyable early scenes, this may have to do with the fact that L'Herbier fell ill during the filming and was replaced by Jacques de Baroncelli. Nevertheless, the movie fulfilled its purpose. It played from its release in February 1943 until the end of the Occupation.