The premise of this sublime comedy is that two third-rate actors, desperate for publicity, devise a harebrained scheme in which one of them pretends to kill the other. The "victim" will then return from the dead at the eleventh hour, saving his friend from the guillotine and creating a national sensation that will turn them both into top-billed stars. Of course, it doesn't all go according to plan...
Michel Simon and Jules Berry make such a great double act it's a pity that the story requires them to split up for most of the movie. But the pace never flags, with Michel Simon's manic attempts to get himself arrested and then to clear himself of the murder charge; and Jules Berry trying to extricate himself from a wildly implausible but potentially fatal case of mistaken identity. The clever conceit of Carlo Rim's screenplay is that these hapless actors cannot even play themselves with conviction when their lives depend on it.
There are some lovely details in the minor characters, too: the music hall starlet whose first reaction on hearing that someone may have been murdered over her is to sort out photos of herself for distribution to the press; the concierge, niggled at the way Michel Simon barks at her cat; and Simon's ineffectual windbag lawyer (all too plausible, I fear).
Jules Berry was a notorious improviser of dialogue, and Michel Simon had difficulty keeping up at times. He even asked him to stick to the script at one point, though director André Berthomieu decided he liked it better when Berry was given free rein. A wise decision, as the spontaneous energy of their scenes together is one of the great delights of this movie.
