Le secret du Chevalier d'Éon

Jacqueline Audry was a female director at a time when only a few of them -Ida Lupino in the USA-dared tread on this male territory.And her movies -when one can see them - are really delightful.

This one takes liberties with history:the chevalier d' Eon was actually a man who used to dress up as a woman.Audry 's character is a woman,which is a courageous move:feminism and woman's lib before their time are here ,in spite of the conventional ending.Besides ,the screenplay predates Victor/Victoria by more than 30 years.Andrée Debar was a very strange actress,she's here more attractive when dressed up as a man than when she contents herself to be feminine.Her career was short-lived ,spanning about ten years,and it's her last movie.

A lot of humor ,of misunderstandings ,a lot of historical characters who are given a Sacha Guitry treatment,an ironical voice over, a lot of good humor.Louis XV,Madame de Pompadour (Jean Desailly and Simone Valere,husband and wife in life)and the tsarina of Russia ,all this live in a chocolate-box landscape.

The chevalier d'Eon briefly appears in Sacha Guitry's "si Versailles m'était conté" as well.Briefly but the sequence is a lot of fun.