Un bon petit diable

Brilliant actor Jean-Claude Brialy who was one of Claude Chabrol's favorite stars -"les cousins" "le beau Serge" -directed pleasant if minor movies.His most successful work is probably "Eglantine" (1971) which told the story of a sweet grannie who used to gather her grandchildren in a castle : a perfume of nostalgia lingered after the viewing.

"Un bon petit diable" ,after uneven works,comes back to childhood.One of the comtesse de Ségur's most popular works,it tells the tale of an orphan ,Charles,mistreated by his wicked old cousin Madame Mac Miche (the part was tailor made for late Alice Sapricht);nevertheless,Charles has many friends including sweet blind young Juliette and her sister Marianne, Mac Miche's maid ,Betty (A colorful Bernadette Laffont,herself one of Chabrol's favorites too),her boyfriend Donald ,and even the judge .

Brialy had already directed Ségur"s "les malheurs de Sophie" before he made "un bon petit diable" .Both works are unpretentious and pleasant if you read the books when you were a child.

Only the first half of the novel is actually transferred to the screen.Juliette and Marianne play very minor parts in the flick whereas they were important characters in the novel.