Whisky, Dynamit und Teufelsweiber

A career which began in 1947 with another version of "Fantomas" and ended with the very first 0SS 117 spy thriler( "OSS 117 n'est pas mort" ):in his ten-year directing time, Jean Sacha never produced anything memorable,although some people have a warm spot for "cet homme est dangereux " (1953)

"La soupe à la grimace " (= a frosty reception" ) is a misnomer for what is essentially an adventure yarn supposedly taking place in South America where a man and his wife vie for the exploitation of their gold (or platinum,the screenwriters do not seem to make up their mind)mines ; on the lady side's a manly mining engineer : George Marchal was ideally cast in this virile part ;and Maria Mauban was equally convincing as his authoritarian boss, at a time the macho spirit was dominant .Noel Roquevert is almost an oddity in this context, but he's got a surprise in store for the hero.

For all these good actors, the movie does not make it :blame it on a muddled screenplay ,which uses repeated murders and sudden new developments at such a speed it's often hard to make sense of these plots and subplots.