Meurtres ?

This french movie treats the, for its time, daring theme of euthanasia. Fernandel's wife is dying and suffering terribly so on her demand he administers her a deadly dose of morfine. He wants to take full blame but his upstart brothers don't want their reputation tainted so they try to declare him insane.

Movie is straightforward but competently executed. It starts off very dark and dramatically but slightly turns into more lighter fare and ends almost as a comedy. After all the leading man is Fernandel who would go on to become France's most popular comedy actor (see the Don Camillo series).

Director Richard Pottier always got a bad rap from critics but I guess this is mainly of the many "operette" movies he made, frequently starring Luis Mariano. His next fillm was "Caroline Cherie" a rather bawdy account of the misadventures of a young girl (Martine Carol) during the French revolution. It would turn out to be one of the most succesfull French movies of the fifties.