Forty Little Mothers

This is Leonide Moguy 's first effort ; it's full of implausibilities : Prosper has two B. A. (in 1936 !) and he wound up as a mechanic assistant in a garage ! In the boarding school where he is hired,he teaches philosophy , literature (there's a good trick about Shakespeare 's "Richard The Third" ) , you name it , and even trigonometry :on the board you can see towards the end , there's the sine curve! Enough is enough!

But it is a pleasant comedy ,long before "trois hommes et un couffin " aka "three men and a baby" , and much better at that. Lucien Baroux is efficient as ever as a kind-hearted man who "adopts " a toddler and hides him in his school (for girls!) unbeknownst to the harsh headmistress (the marvelous Gabrielle Dorziat ) helped by an unexpected Pauline Carton as the supervisor .Pretty soon , the baby will have forty moms,for the students have discovered his secret , and of course shame and scandal in the boarding school with a good reputation. It's also one of Madeleine Robinson 's first roles ,here cast as the unfortunate mother ,who was forced to abandon her baby because she was utterly destitute .

Leonide Moguy would return to establishment for girls ,this time a reformatory ("prisons sans barreaux ") in his sophomore effort.