La Poison (1951)

[Scottie]

La Poison Blu-ray PRE-ORDER

The writer, actor, and director Sacha Guitry emerged from the theater to become one of France’s best-known and most inventive filmmakers, and La poison marked his first collaboration with another titan of the screen, the incomparably expressive Michel Simon. With Guitry’s witty dialogue and fleet pacing, the black comedy is the quintessential depiction of a marriage gone sour: after thirty years together, a village gardener (Simon) and his wife (Germaine Reuver) find themselves contemplating how to do away with each other, with the former even planning how he’ll negotiate his eventual criminal trial. Inspired by Guitry’s own post–World War II tangle with the law—a wrongful charge of collaborationism—La poison is a blithely caustic broadside against the French legal system and a society all too eager to capitalize on others’ misfortunes.

Disc Features
New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
New interview with filmmaker Olivier Assayas on director Sacha Guitry’s influence on French cinema
On Life On-screen: Miseries and Splendour of a Monarch, a 60-minute documentary from 2010 on the collaboration of Guitry and Michel Simon
New English subtitle translation
More!
PLUS: An essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau and a 1957 obituary for Guitry by François Truffaut

[javi92]

With so many classic French films that have been restored or remastered, wish I knew for the life of me why Criterion chose to go with this one. Oh well.

[easydreamer]

Michel Simon is so damn good in this one. Guitry salutes him at the beginning of this film, but he surely deserves it.

Have the MoC blu, but will definitely double dip for the region A playability as this is one of my favorire French films of that era.

[Scottie]

Svet's review for La Poison review is live.

[tenia]

The legendary French actor Louis de Funès (La grande vadrouille, Le Gendarme et les extra-terrestres) has a small cameo in La poison as well.

Just a detail about this : it actually isn't a cameo, but rather a minor role.

La poison was made in 1951, while De Funès started being famous around 1954 with Papa, maman, la bonne et moi and of course in 1956 with La Traversée de Paris (plus Papa, maman, ma femme et moi).
It's only in 1957 that he got a main role in a movie and it didn't achieved it's reknown stardom before 1961 in theatre and 1963 on the screen.

[Scottie]

PACKAGING PHOTOS

[bigshot]

Brilliant black comedy. I've had the UK version for some time. Great transfer. I'm sure the Criterion will be the same.

[joy-division]

arrived today

[MifuneFan]

$17.24 at WM, and AMZ has matched

https://www.walmart.com/ip/La-Poison-Blu-ray/55825503

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/La-Po...lu-ray/133963/