Henri-Georges Clouzot continues his little sojourn into the unusual, for him, with a frivolous romantic comedy. It's fun, but very frivolous. It reminded me of Ingmar Bergman's own unusual entry in his filmography, Smiles of a Summer Night, a farce where everyone starts with the wrong match and ends with the right one. I might prefer it when Clouzot is doing what he's famous for, but it's obvious that he was more than just the French Master of Suspense.
Miquette (Daniele Delorme) is a shop girl who works for her mother, Madame Grandier (Mireille Perrey). Miquette is besot by dreams of acting, especially after seeing a production of Le Cid and a meeting with the acting troupe's director and lead, Monchablon (Louis Jouvet), her mother dismissive of it all. The young heir to the local barony, Urbain (Bourvil), something of a fop, is smitten with Miquette and wishes to marry her over the objections of his father, the marquis (Saturnin Fabre). In order to dissuade the connection, the marquis arranges another marriage for Urbain but also becomes smitten with Miquette himself upon his first meeting, feeling younger than he has in years.
So sets the stage for Miquette and Urbain to have a falling out, the marquis to steal Miquette away and try and buy her love, Monchablon taking advantage of the situation to have the marquis buy her way into his troupe, Madame Grandier becoming smitten with the world of acting the second she's given an opportunity to join, and Urbain pursuing Miquette both out of spite because he's mad at her for running off with his own father and because he loves her.
It's the sort of overly complicated and overstuffed setup that comedies can mine for laughs with ease. And I think it does it well. The acting is in this space between arch and realistic where everyone's obviously going for laughs but it never feels desperate. There are fun repeated lines, especially from Monchablon who narrates his actions like he's reading stage direction. Plot escalations continue through to the ending with stakes raising in unexpected ways, like Madame Grandier having a gambling problem that could only be fixed by marrying someone rich. I mean, none of this is hard to figure out as the film starts, but the predictability is part of the appeal of farce.
The film also looks really good. Clouzot was never that showy of a director, his visual tastes much more commonly appealing towards clean and efficient rather than self-conscious, and that approach works well in this comedic farce. Never drawing attention from the action but keeping it clear and efficient for the audience, the film is handsomely presented from beginning to end.
Really, it's a minor and frivolous work, but it entertained me consistently through its brief runtime. It wasn't much at the box office in France at the time, necessitating Clouzot to go in a more familiar direction next with Wages of Fear, but Miquette is, I think, worthy of reappraisal. It'll never be considered his best film, nor should it, but it's an entertaining trifle. It has just this side of nothing to say. It's a nice little film that provides consistent smiles with mild ambitions.
It's all plot, moves fast, and makes me smile. I can't ask for much more from a comedy.
