La moucharde

Guy Lefranc's career got off to most auspicious start , although his first two works ("knock" " un histoire d'amour" )owed a lot to Louis Jouvet;some entertaining comedies ("suivez-moi jeune homme" "capitaine pantoufle" ) some less so ("elle et lui ") follow.

"Chantage "(1955) which depicted a blackmail organisation seemed to indicate that the director was going in a good direction.

It did not seem that way with the following thriller, which got bogged down in the worst tricks of melodrama ; a screenplay which has enough plot holes to fill the Albert Hall, a truck driver whose behaviour takes naiveté to new limits -would you give one million francs to the first to come?-, the convict's testament , the discovery on a cheesecake magazine , the good sister who ,in spite of a poor background , became a deserving nurse and stayed on the straight and narrow.

Dany Carrel saves something from the wreckage :she portrays a girl escaped from a reform school who does not want to follow her sister's footsteps and work for a meager wage ;she dreams of a luxury life,with furs, jewels,champagne and the whole kit ;abetted by a nice -but bad- boy ( a cast against type Pierre Vaneck), she sinks into shady business .He and Carrel could have been an ideal romantic couple,had they been given good material to work with.