The Truth About Bebe Donge

François Donge is a rich provincial industrialist who is always involved with women. He meets a young woman called Elisabeth; people call her Bébé. They marry. Ten years later François is poisoned and, waiting to die in a clinic, remembers his marriage from the beginning. The one who gave him the poison is his wife. Looking back from where he lies, the man sees how much she loved him and how he spent that away. The source is Georges Simenon's novel from 1942. Henri Decoin directed. The poisoning is not the film's end but its beginning; the whole story is built backwards from it, and the question is not who did it but why. Danielle Darrieux plays Bébé and makes the woman neither a victim nor a murderer; she is both. Jean Gabin took the part at a time when he was trying to rebuild his career after the war. A hundred and ten minutes.