The year before ,Ed Wood made his "Glen or Glenda " : his film was not released in France, so it's doubtful that unsung director René Gaveau was inspired by his American colleague ,but it's a curious coincidence all the same.
Against all odds , "Adam est ......Eve " (et =and ; est= is are almost homonyms in French ) is a guilty pleasure,brilliantly bad, and not as dumb as it appears .
Plot:Charles is about to complete his military service ; his behavior becomes more and more bizarre : when he fights in a boxing match , he loses because "he felt he was not able to punch his opponent" ; in the barrack-room ,he suddenly feels too modest to get out of bed before his mates ; and,mainly ,he does not want to marry his fiancée anymore. His barrack buddy ,Gaston, tries to cure him ,by making drink a potion made by his future brother-in-law, a chemist ,and by entrusting him to a (female) shrink .But the more he tries , the more he feels he's not a man anymore .And eventually ,he takes the plunge .A (closer to Welles' doctor Moreau than to a serious scientist) surgeon operates him and ..presto !he's a woman .Exit Charles,make way for Charlotte .But his/her family is not prepared to accept it. On the other hand ,his former fiancée he had reluctantly married, takes him/her back and they live together for a while (no hint at lesbianism).
Both Charles and Charlotte are played by an actress,Michèle Carvel (her voice must have been dubbed when she's a man);the cast includes omnipresent Jean Tissier ,an undertaker with a black sense of humor and Jean Carmet ,later a famous comic actor .
The subject is given a comedy treatment ,with puns,saucy innuendos and word games galore ; the nerds will turn their nose up but the story is not so silly: a transsexual as the hero of a movie was anything but derivative at the time ; and he is not blamed , the ending is even witty and thumbs its nose at right-thinking people .
The scene in the cabaret with topless women in the nightclub should have been edited out ,not by prudishness, but because they are only here to bait the male audience. And a transsexual should never be considered a strange animal :he is a human being like you and me.
In spite of these reservations , you should watch this : it was risqué for 1954!
