Le Fruit défendu

Simenon's novel Lettre à mon juge is here filmed as Forbidden Fruit by a competent commercial director, Henri Verneuil, and a fine cast made up of Fernandel, Raymond Pellegrin, Sylvie, Claude Nollier and Françoise Arnoul. Fernandel, one of the finest actors of world cinema when he wasn't making Don Camillo pictures, does a wonderful impression of a man drowning in provincial bourgeois respectability whose life is turned upside down by a sexy young thing met by chance in a train station. There are several superb scenes: for instance, at the outdoor concert where the dancers wind through the crowd, thoroughly disturbing Dr. Pellegrin's guilty thoughts.

What happened to Françoise Arnoul's career? She's unforgettable as Martine, the thoughtless little adventurer who uses men as steps on a ladder. Her apotheosis came in French Can-Can two years later with Renoir; as Nini the seamstress turned dancer she made a sensation. The New Wave directors ignored her however, and she was stuck playing tarts in thrillers for many years.