Rent Drole de Drame (1937)

Madcap 1930's French B&W farce - Drole de Drame review by Mr Aquarium

There's a Mary-Whitehouse-type English Bishop who is secretly a philanderer; a prim, Hyacinth-Bouquet-type housewife who's tempted by a love-struck man who unbeknownst to the both of them is the sworn enemy and intended-murderer of her husband; a respected botanist who secretly moonlights as a detective novelist but whose creative ideas come from the below-stairs staff; a house full of free milk bottles; people hiding in attics, cupboards, London's Edwardian Chinatown, and their own home in disguise as someone else; respectable citizens coshed and robbed for their floriferous buttonholes; a pompous, supremely confident Scotland Yard Detective who is an idiot bumbler; and so on. Like the best farces, it all makes sense at the time, one misapprehension or secret leading to another - its spirit is Fawlty Towers, albeit made by the French and transposed to their vision of a starchy but double-dealing Edwardian London. You have to keep your wits about you, but if you're in the mood and can cope with subtitles, it's a ridiculous pleasure.