Life Is a Hospital

There is no one more serious than a character in a farce. The mirth belongs solely to the audience; if a performer cracks a smile, he crumbles the whole absurd structure. No one knows the rules better than Philippe de Broca (The Love Game, That Man from Rio). In The

Devil by the Tail, as in his previous films, the French director bends the truth but never quite breaks it, and makes sure that even during its wildest moments his comedy keeps a straight face.

In a ruined chateau, a family of French aristocrats are slowly starving to death. The austere, haughty marquise conceives a plan. With the help of God--and her daughter and granddaughter--she will turn the place into a bordello. As Baudelaire wrote and the picture illustrates, "Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed with the desire to change his bed." In a sudden deluge of customers, the most libidinous patient is Cesar (Yves Montand), a glib, jittery professional thief. The ladies of the house conspire to render unto themselves what is Cesar's--a million stolen francs--with a genteel little murder. But under the international law that protects farceurs, Cesar not only escapes with his life but also with the affection of the chateau's only virgin, Jeanne (Clotilde Joano).

For years, Montand has been living two lives. Onstage he is a singer of romantic ballads and risque street songs. Onscreen, in such films as La Guerre Est Finie and Live for Life, he is as grim and bitter as Humphrey Bogart. In The Devil by the Tail, he takes his stage personality out of the trunk and refurbishes it with a series of warm interludes and witty tongue-in-cheek pantomimes. As the marquise's daughter, Maria Schell also alters her usually grim image with a comically erotic performance and an exuberantly uplifted bosom.

The word farce comes from a Latin verb meaning "to stuff." Too often film farces are crammed with top-of-the-lungs comedians and bottom-of-the-gag-file comedy. The Devil by the Tail fills its hour and a half with sly performances and wry wit. It is the stuff of life--and of laughter.

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