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.

The film under review closes off nicely Claude Autant-Lara's impeccable 15-year run of noteworthy pictures that had begun with 1943's DOUCE (see my upcoming rave review); it is also notable for being an unlikely but fairly successful meeting between the biggest (Jean Gabin) and hottest (Brigitte Bardot) stars in French Cinema at the time i.e. just before the outbreak of the "Nouvelle Vague" brought along a horde of fresh and irreverent talent. Adapted from a Georges Simenon novel, the plot of EN CAS DE MALHEUR is quite predictable and not entirely convincing but the consummate professionalism of all concerned smooths over any bumps that come up along the way. Bardot is an aimless youth who, together with her reluctant girlfriend, amateurishly attempts to pull off a small-time jewel heist that, inevitably, goes wrong and, eventually, picks up Gabin's name at random from a phone book to act as her defense counsel in court; not having the financial means to pay for his services, she elects to remunerate him in the only way she knows how: seduction. Although this particular sequence, as shown in the finished film, is disappointingly chaste, the deleted clip reproduced at the end of the copy I acquired is, however, too crude to be seen at such an early stage of the film and, in my opinion, the director was wise to jettison it; in any case, he did contrive to gives us a good look at the gloriously naked body (solely from the back, of course) of the 23-year old Bardot later on when she rushes out of the bathroom and into bed (much to the chagrin of Gabin's mousy secretary) of the apartment that Gabin provided her with! Needless to say, Gabin is already married (to the formidable Edwige Feuilliere) and, although on the surface she appears to condone Gabin's latest flirtation, she is obviously none too happy about it. To complicate matters further, Bardot is also seeing her irascible Italian lover (Franco Interlenghi) on the side and things come to a tragic head when she unwisely decides that loveless wealth is preferable to blissful poverty. Abetted by Jacques Natteau's noir-ish lighting and Rene' Cloerec's fine score, the colorful cast also includes three alumni from the films of Luis Bunuel, namely Julien Bertheau (appearing briefly at the very end as the investigating inspector at the scene of the crime passionel), Jean-Pierre Cassel (unbilled as an animated trumpeter, one of Bardot's casual lovers) and an unrecognizable Bernard Musson – and even Jacques Marin and Daniela Bianchi (also unrecognizable). While the film's 122-minute running time would seem overgenerous on paper, it is only the belated (and unnecessary) introduction of the character of Bardot's maid that makes one realize this as we lay watching; I strongly suspect that the film-makers wanted to push the boundaries of censorship even further by hinting at a possible ménage-a-trois between her, Bardot and Gabin but, perhaps thankfully, this is not made all that clear in the few scenes they share together…which is just as well since the huge difference in age between on screen lovers Gabin and Bardot and the above-mentioned nude scene had already raised the proverbial conservative eyebrows! For the record, the film was remade 40 years later as EN PLEIN COEUR aka IN ALL INNOCENCE with Virginie Ledoyen stepping into Bardot's 'shoes'.

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.

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.