Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

runamokprods Well acted, especially by Jean Gabin, and there's no denying Bridget Bardot's sex appeal, although a more gifted actress might have made both the character and the whole film deeper.A middle aged attorney (Gabin) falls for a sexy young client (Bardot) after she bungles a stick up. They carry on an open affair with her, as Gabin's wife keeps waiting for him to come home, and as Bardot keeps vacillating between her older, stable lover, and her hot, volatile young boyfriend.Never boring, but stays pretty much on the surface most of the time, with an oddly light tone. However, the ending twist is quite moving, and gives the whole film a deeper resonance than it would have otherwise.

adrian290357 This is not a particularly well known movie among the anglophone crowd but it is definitely very advanced for its year of production, 1958. Yvette Maudet ("maudit" means accursed in French) as portrayed by Bardot is a constantly split personality that seems utterly unable to decide whether she wants the wealthy but old and not overly attractive Gabin or the young and handsome, but poor, Gaston. The way she enlists the services of Gabin as her lawyer is memorable and the scene so graphic and far ahead of its time that it was cut! Curvaceous 22-year-old blonde Bardot is to die for but it is Gabin that carries the film with a masterly performance. Look out for Feuillere in role of Gabin's wife. She is apparently liberal and allows the affair to unfold and develop in the belief that her husband will eventually come back and she will remain in control of the marriage. Watch how she puts away her glasses when he comes into her bedroom so she looks more attractive to him... even though she knows she cannot compete with the much younger and voluptuous BB. Watch her loyalty to her husband as she sees him run after the mirage of young and callously carefree beauty, and she sees his business collapse and begin to affect her own life.There is more: There is the extremely competent direction, an engrossing screenplay, and bewitching photography from director Autant-Lara and his team. It provides no happy end but this film has so much to offer that I can only encourage you to not miss it, dear reader.

wildpeace10 When we are first introduced to bardot's character,her charm doesn't get through because,first she's chewing gum & then she plans a robbery that ends up in her hitting an older lady on the head and face.But when she gets to see a lawyer played by gabin and seduces him,we get seduced also by her character,at least for a little while.Because you see,bardot is a free spirit that not only was selling drugs and sleeping around but that seems to want to have a relationship with both gabin et her old boyfriend.Gabin is not always all that sympathetic of a character either.He doesn't hesitate to bend or cheat the law to save bardot.He hurts his wife mentally by having an affair and at first doesn't care that bardot is not a one man woman.This film has a certain famous reputation for having been censored and the 2 second scene featuring bardot lefting her skirt exposing her backside(gabin apparently sees the lower front but we don't) is available on the french DVD.It's hard to understand what the fuss was all about since past the 90 minutes,we also see bardot's butt in a slightly longer scene which wasn't censored.While the old boyfriend has an obsession with bardot and isn't such a good character, nothing indicated that his jalousy would push him to commit a crime.Yes,the film does indeed end with a sad conclusion which probably results in the film having a more powerful impact.This black & white film is way too long. At first,you feel that everything is wrapped up in about the first 30 minutes & that the rest of the film was written afterwards.Perhaps because i first saw bardot in pictures about ten years after this one,i'm more attracted to her older version in her less older films.So in conclusion,this remains an interesting film but a very uneven one also.

Wout Visser (wrvisser-leusden-nl) Brigitte Bardot, at the pinnacle of her career, plays a cheap whore committing a robbery. At her trial she is defended succesfully by the jet-set lawyer Gobillot, played by the great Jean Gabin. Needless to tell that Gobillot gets involved by Brigitte's charms, and that she becomes his mistress afterwards.'En cas de malheur' shows fascinatingly the spell young, blond and beautiful Yvette (= BB) excercises on Gobillot - him getting into serious professional and marital trouble as a result. Of course Yvette meanwhile keeps involved with a lover of her own age.The movie also bridges a generation gap. It really is the splendid youthful beauty of Bardot against the magnificent acting by the mature Gabin and Edwige Feuillière (who plays madame Gobillot).The greatest thing about this good movie is, I think, that Brigitte accepted second billing after Gabin. At the height of her breathtaking career she did just that, and the results show her right.You may be interested to know that the story of 'Malheur' was written by Georges Simenon. He is a Belgian who became famous all over Europe for his detective-novels, featuring policeman Maigret. Also interesting is that Gabin had a love affair with Marlène Dietrich (at the end of the forties, I believe). So he knew about beautiful actresses: when Brigitte met him for the first time on the set of 'Malheur', she was so over-awed that she spoke her lines wrongly. Gabin, understanding, made a few mistakes himself in his lines - purposely, thus putting Brigitte at ease. It worked.The end of 'Malheur' fits well: Yvette is murdered by her lover, the young one. A crime out of jealousy.