Goupi Mains Rouges [It Happened at the Inn] **** (1943, Fernand Ledoux, Georges Rollin, Blanchette Brunoy, Robert Le Vigan, Albert Rémy) – Classic Movie Review 8671

Director Jacques Becker’s 1943 black and white film Goupi Mains Rouges [It Happened at the Inn] is an extremely effective, deservedly admired French black comedy about the murder of an old woman in a French village inhabited by one extended family, all called Goupi, stretching out through four generations.

Several members of her Goupi family are suspected. So, who has done it? Fernand Ledoux plays Léopold Goupi, called Goupi-Mains-Rouges, the patriarch who has his own solution to the murder and theft of the old woman’s savings.

Goupi Mains Rouges [It Happened at the Inn] is an impressive feather in the cap for Becker (in his third film), whose masterly direction turns it into a classic and whose location filming captures a fragrant feel of rural life.

And spot on are both the writing by Jacques Becker, based on the novel by Pierre Véry, and the acting by Fernand Ledoux, Robert Le Vigan, Georges Rollin, Blanchette Brunoy, Arthur Devère, Line Noro, René Génin, Albert Rémy and Marcel Perès.

It was awarded the Grand Prix du Cinéma Français in 1943.

Becker’s first two feature films are La vie est à nous (1936) and Dernier atout (1942).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8671

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