It's always a joy to see Suzanne Flon in anything but when she appears in a film that is good in itself and/or works alongside actors of similar calibre as she does here then we're talking bonus. Although he has something like twenty five films under his directorial belt Maurice Cloche is relatively unknown outside France having failed to capitalize on the internationally well-received adaptation of a Paul Gallico story The Small Miracle/Never Take No For An Answer in the early fifties. Here he takes an old melodramatic war-horse and thanks largely to Flon and co-stars Philippe Noiret and Jean Rochefort gives it a new coat of paint. He also resists the temptation to shoot the Ball scene a' la Ophuls, preferring to keep his camera static and let the waltzers come to him rather than gliding and swooping as Ophuls would have done. The plot - Noiret, caught with his hand in the till, ices the outraged witness and Flon takes the fall but everything ends happily - needn't detain us which means we can wallow in the performances - both male leads somewhat changed, Noiret slimmer though he was never going to be sylph-like and Rochefort almost unrecognizably young - especially Flon who lights up the screen whenever she appears. Not so much a masterpiece or even a minor masterpiece as a minor pleasure.
Review of The Bread Peddler
