Drôle de Drame begins with a sly and self-righteous bishop attempting to unmask the mysterious Félix Chapel, the author of voguish detective stories which he believes are responsible for a slump in society's moral values. But stirring his sceptre in these muddy waters results in murder, mistaken identity and sexual sins of the past all floating to the top.

The French were huge admirers of farce and the Marx Brothers, so it's no surprise that this fast-moving comedy resembles Animal Crackers meets Feydeau. Only the unassuming Félix Chapel and the vaguely disreputable lower orders come across well, approaching life as if aware that they are living in a light comedy. The real frauds are the cops and clerics - inept, pompous and woefully selfish. The socialites are more concerned with the loss of servants than the possible loss of life vowed by a vengeful killer and honest declarations of love become misinterpreted as a sinister code by head-scratching Scotland Yard inspectors.

This has no pretensions to be anything more than a romantic comedy sizzling with satire and farce. Yet its illustrious creators supply elegance, simplicity and sharpness. Eugen Schüfftan, who had previously worked on Fritz Lang's sumptuous Metropolis and Hitchcock's Blackmail, was responsible for the crisp cinematography. More significantly, however, the piece was directed by Michel Carné and scripted by Jacques Prévert, the team who went onto create Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise), voted Best French Film of the Century in the late 1990s by a group of French reviewers and movie-makers.

Carné and Prévert later produced more important work, but never anything infused with the fun and sheer joie de vie of Drôle de Drame.

Gavin Collinson