It was, perhaps, inevitable that Sacha Guitry would eventually get round to writing about his father, Lucien, a star of Le Comedy Francaise and a couple of Silent films (he died in 1925) and an actor of the school that included Jack Barrymore, Bransby Williams and others of that ilk.
Never one to hide his light under a bushel Sacha plays a dual role of father and son and clearly has a lot of fun panning from himself to himself as if to challenge the audience to hold its collective breath. He limns his father economically as in the scene where Lucien is in his study declaiming aloud from a favorite text only to be interrupted by the telephone: 'Pardon, Moliere' cries the thespian to the playwright as he answers it. Elsewhere Guitry shoots a scene almost entirely in a mirror, a schtick he had used in other films. A fine addition to the Guitry canon.
Never one to hide his light under a bushel Sacha plays a dual role of father and son and clearly has a lot of fun panning from himself to himself as if to challenge the audience to hold its collective breath. He limns his father economically as in the scene where Lucien is in his study declaiming aloud from a favorite text only to be interrupted by the telephone: 'Pardon, Moliere' cries the thespian to the playwright as he answers it. Elsewhere Guitry shoots a scene almost entirely in a mirror, a schtick he had used in other films. A fine addition to the Guitry canon.
