Poison (1951) ( La Poison )

Poison (1951) (DVD) (*)

$35.99

Original Title: La Poison
Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Mono )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
87 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Documentary
Interactive Menu
Photo Gallery
Scene Access
Black & White
Booklet
Remastered

Movie filmed in 1951 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
Sacha Guitry

Written By:
Sacha Guitry

Actors:
Michel Simon ..... Paul Louis Victor Braconnier
Jean Debucourt ..... Maître Aubanel
Jacques Varennes ..... Le procureur
Jeanne Fusier-Gir ..... La fleuriste
Germaine Reuver ..... Blandine Braconni
Pauline Carton ..... La mercière
Albert Duvaleix ..... L'abbé Méthivi
Henry Laverne ..... Le président
Jacques de Féraudy ..... M. Brun
Jacques Derives ..... Jules
Louis de Funes ..... André
Luce Fabiole ..... La servante du curé
Yvonne Hébert ..... Julie
Roger Poirier ..... Un geôli
André Dalibert ..... Le gendar

Synopsis:

One of the great late period films by Sacha Guitry - the total auteur who delighted (and scandalised) the French public and inspired the French New Wave as a model for authorship as director-writer-star of screen and stage alike. In every one of his pictures (and almost every one served as a rueful examination of the war between the sexes), Guitry sculpted by way of a rapier wit - one might say by way of "the Guitry touch" - some of the most sophisticated black comedies ever conceived... and La Poison [Poison] is one of his blackest. Michel Simon plays Paul Braconnier, a man with designs on murdering his wife Blandine (Germaine Reuver) - a woman with similar designs on her husband. When Braconnier visits Paris to consult with a lawyer about the perfect way of killing a spouse - that is, the way in which he can get away with it - an acid comedy unfolds that reaches its peak in a courtroom scene for the ages. From the moment of Guitry's trademark introduction of his principals in the opening credits, and on through the brilliant performance by national treasure Michel Simon (of Renoir's Boudu sauvé des eaux and Vigo's L'Atalante, to mention only two high-water marks), here is fitting indication of why Guitry is considered by many the Gallic equal of Ernst Lubitsch. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to introduce Sacha Guitry into the catalogue with La Poison for the first time on video in the UK in a dazzling new Gaumont restoration.

Directed by the prolific actor, screenwriter and playwright Sacha Guitry (1885-1957), a film-maker much admired by the Nouvelle Vague, La Poison is a calculatedly amoral black comedy set in an undistinguished, impoverished French village. He wrote it for Michel Simon (1895-1975), the plug-ugly, gravel-voiced, ungainly, infinitely expressive Swiss-born actor, France's Charles Laughton. Simon plays Paul Braconnier, unhappily married for 30 years to the noisome, charmless alcoholic, Blandine. Both are contemplating murder, Blandine using rat poison, Paul employing information craftily acquired from a lawyer celebrated for winning acquittal for murder suspects. It's a cleverly plotted film, wittily mocking the French legal system, conventional morality and horrors of small-town life. It was made at a time when divorce was almost unthinkable among the poor, and the guillotine was standard punishment for murder. Simon's outrageously misogynistic Paul is a remarkable creation, and the film is shot in a painterly black-and-white. Instead of the usual printed credits we have the suave Guitry introducing his cast and crew to the audience. The film was carefully rehearsed, and shot using three cameras simultaneously. At Simon's request there were no retakes, which gives La Poison a freshness and spontaneity. It also meant a nine-day shooting schedule. The disc contains an hour-length documentary on Guitry and Simon, and one hopes Eureka! will now bring out Guitry's masterpiece, the supreme Le Roman d'un tricheur, a major success in pre-war Britain.

Paul Braconnier and his wife Blandine only have one thing in mind: to find a way to kill each other without risk. After listening to a radio show, Paul decided to go to Paris to meet a famous lawyer in the acquittal of the murderers. He told the lawyer that he killed his wife. The lawyer asked Paul to reconstruct the circumstances of the drama. Without knowing it, he explains, in spite of himself, the way for Paul to murder his wife by putting the odds on his side to avoid death penalty or even be released...

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 01 October, 2013.