Tu crois pas si bien dire is excellent entertainment. The story is sound and full of suspense - up to a point reminiscent of Hitchcock's North by Northwest - top actors like Jean-Pierre Cassel and Danielle Darrieux give delightful performances and make this a surprisingly good movie - although it was made for television.
Plot summary
Robert Joffre is an aging movie actor. He won't get more assignments but takes it with considerable nonchalance. There are still his fans who like him - especially the female ones. As Joffre sits in a bar, he is accosted by an elegant older woman who invites him for a drink. He faints and finds himself in a small room in an unknown location. The woman reappears and offers him a job. She and her company of two vaguely menacing characters make clear to Joffre that it is an "offer he can't refuse". She wants him to impersonate her son, famous industrialist Georges Lemaire who should sign important papers but is not able to do so. Joffre is made up as Lemaire. He has no choice, furthermore he is tickled; he wants to give a good performance and satisfy his personal pride. Joffre is kept a prisoner in Lemaires château on the outskirts of Paris. He meets Lemaire's mentally unstable wife who tells him that her husband is not on a trip like Joffre was told, but lies terminally ill in a room somewhere in the huge château, kept there as a prisoner of his mother and her assistants. The actor finds it hard to believe her, but as Lemaire's wife dies in an apparent suicide, his doubts increase. On the other hand he becomes aware that his Lemaire impersonation can give him considerable power which might allow him to wrench himself out of Lemaire's mother's clutches.
Suddenly, the real Lemaire appears. Or is he just another "dummy"? A sizzling pot of fondue bourguignonne in a dazzling subterranean apartment will lead straight to the answer!
Plot summary
Robert Joffre is an aging movie actor. He won't get more assignments but takes it with considerable nonchalance. There are still his fans who like him - especially the female ones. As Joffre sits in a bar, he is accosted by an elegant older woman who invites him for a drink. He faints and finds himself in a small room in an unknown location. The woman reappears and offers him a job. She and her company of two vaguely menacing characters make clear to Joffre that it is an "offer he can't refuse". She wants him to impersonate her son, famous industrialist Georges Lemaire who should sign important papers but is not able to do so. Joffre is made up as Lemaire. He has no choice, furthermore he is tickled; he wants to give a good performance and satisfy his personal pride. Joffre is kept a prisoner in Lemaires château on the outskirts of Paris. He meets Lemaire's mentally unstable wife who tells him that her husband is not on a trip like Joffre was told, but lies terminally ill in a room somewhere in the huge château, kept there as a prisoner of his mother and her assistants. The actor finds it hard to believe her, but as Lemaire's wife dies in an apparent suicide, his doubts increase. On the other hand he becomes aware that his Lemaire impersonation can give him considerable power which might allow him to wrench himself out of Lemaire's mother's clutches.
Suddenly, the real Lemaire appears. Or is he just another "dummy"? A sizzling pot of fondue bourguignonne in a dazzling subterranean apartment will lead straight to the answer!