LE MARIAGE DE CHIFFON (1942)

First in a series of subversive-free light romantic entertainments made-to-order by director Claude Autant-Lara for Nazi Occupation days.  Pablum for nervous times, it has Autant-Lara regular Odette Joyeux (pushing forty, but playing a well-to-do 16½ yr-old) as a flirty thing whose long-standing crush on bankrupt aviation inventor ‘Uncle’ Jacques Dumesnil is tested after she meets-cute with middle-aged suitor Colonel André Luguet, newly stationed in town and rich enough to have her use her dowry to bail the guy out.  The novel (or perhaps it’s the adaptors) lay on a series of farce elements (lost-and-found recidivist shoe; independent-minded butler; domineering mother with weak-willed step-dad; rule-breaking dog; secret diary entries) only to solve them one-by-one when they need to be developed into a comic crescendo.  Where’s René Clair when you need him?  (Answer: in Hollywood exile.)  Overstuffed with decor, costumes & period bric-a-brac (circa 1912), the film is a bit too sweet, too comfortable, too easy in resolutions.  But pleasant enough to ‘occupy’ an hour or two . . . which undoubtedly was the point.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: More interesting than the film are similarities with Billy Wilder’s undervalued LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON/’57.  Not only in farce situations & characterizations, but even in how it repeatedly uses  Marchetti’s ‘Fascination’ on the soundtrack. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/05/love-in-afternoon-1957.html   OR: Autant-Lara’s DOUCE/’43.  More of the same, but better.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/09/douce-1943.html