It's important to bear in mind that this is a very French story. It is a comedy with dark undertones. "Hell Is Sold Out" is a best-selling book by a famous author who was lost among the casualties in the French resistance in the war. The problem is he didn't write it. Instead, it was written by a fan of his, who after the war presumes to be his widow and occupies his fashionable home, while she insists he was the author. Another problem: he turns up alive, and there is an awkward situation when he comes home and finds a wife of his occupying it whom he has never seen before.
Fortunately there is Richard Attenborough, a friend of the author's, who was in a Gestapo prison together with him, and he saves the film. He is a musician earning his living at a bar where he has to play popular cheap music while he is an excellent pianist of Chopin and Beethoven. This must be one of his finest roles, as his character of a poor musician and composer with a piece of shrapnel in his head that sometimes makes him collapse, is extremely sensitive and sympathetic. They are all good. Herbert Lom's character of the author reminds you of his later perfect impersonation of Napoleon in King Vidor's "War and Peace", he is always good in any role, and here he reminds very much of Charles Boyer. May Zetterling as the impostor who has written and published a book in Herbert Lom's name is always a glittering gem in every film, as beautiful as Grace Kelly but too intelligent for ordinary starhood. Then there is the incomparable Kathleen Byron in the most important supporting role, making a brief but striking and devastatingly efficient appearance - her last word sums up the entire film. The music is not very dominant but good enough as it is, while the scenes in the café are the most memorable, especially the one where Kathleen Byron makes her entrance.
In brief, this is a brilliant, intelligent comedy with sparkling conversation all through, and it is a pity that so few have understood to appreciate its credits.
