7 /10 1 Votes7
| 6.9/10 IMDb Produced by Raoul LévyRay Ventura | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Screenplay by Jean AurenchePierre Bost Initial release 17 September 1958 (France) Nominations Golden Lion, Volpi Cup for Best Actor, Volpi Cup for Best Actress, Grand Jury Prize Cast Similar Jean Gabin movies, Movies about lawyers, Other similar movies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In Case of Adversity (French: En cas de malheur) is a 1958 French drama film directed by Claude Autant-Lara, starring Jean Gabin, Brigitte Bardot and Edwige Feuillère. It was released as Love Is My Profession in the United States. It tells the story of a married lawyer who defends a young female criminal, falls in love with her and tries to create a family with her, despite her lack of interest in a serious relationship. The screenplay was written by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost after the novel In Case of Emergency by Georges Simenon. The film was released in France on 17 September 1958.
Contents
Plot
Maitre André Gobillot (Jean Gabin), a distinguished lawyer in his mid 50s, defends a beautiful young woman, Yvette Maudet (Brigitte Bardot), who has committed a robbery with a toy gun and a crow bar. Despite the fact that Yvette injured an elderly woman with the crow bar, the brilliant lawyer successfully clears Yvette of the charges. Having accepted the case without payment, André's wife, Vivianne (Edwige Feuillère), assumes he wants to sleep with Yvette which proves to be the case. He also falls in love with her, putting his reputation and marriage at risk. However, Yvette is not true to him, and continually goes back to her younger, jealous lover, Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). André moves her to a new apartment where Mazzetti can't find her and attempts to create a small family and a happy home.
Cast
Critical
"Something is obviously missing in the French film that has been made from Georges Simenon's weirdly off-beat novel", wrote Bosley Crowther of The New York Times. He continued: "There are elements for shattering drama here. Yet, strangely, it doesn't develop. It all moves along in the groove of conventional nonconformance with the obvious social rules." Crowther called Autant-Lara "one of the best directors in France", but wrote that Bardot's performance "falls far short" and that "Jean Gabin misses, too".
François Truffaut called it one of Autant-Lara's best films and compared it to the plays of Jean Anouilh. Truffaut wrote:
We come out of it with a mixture of disgust and admiration, a sense of satisfaction that is real enough but incomplete. It is 100 percent French, with all the virtues and vices that implies: an analysis that is at once subtle and narrow, a skill that is mixed with spitefulness, a spirit of unflinching observation directed at the sordid, and talented sleight-of hand that delivers a liberal message in the end." Truffaut described how the film contrasts the scene where Bardot's character robs a jewelry store with the British queen who is visiting Paris. Truffaut wrote: "It's the girl who interests us and preoccupies us, not an anachronistic queen. It is precisely because Bardot is a girl who represents her time absolutely faithfully that she is more famous than any queen or princess. That's why it's too bad she played Une Parisienne or The Night Heaven Fell. And it's why En Cas des Malheur is her best film since And God Created Woman—an anti-Sabrina, anti-Roman Holiday, anti-Anastasia movie that is truly republican."
Box Office
The film was a big hit in France, recording admissions of 3,152,082.
It was the thirteenth most popular film of 1958 in France after The Ten Commandments, Les Miserables, The Cranes are Flying, Sissi Faces Her Destiny, Young Sinners, Mon uncle, The Young Lions, L'eau Vive, Les Grandes Familles, La Loi Est La Loi, Sans Famille, and The Vikings.