In France it is often mooted that Marcel Carné without Jacques Prevert was nothing or almost nothing.But when you watch Prevert's screenplays which were not directed by "Le Jour se Lève" director,you're compelled to admit that all was not gold.And Richard Pottier is not that much bad a director as "Caroline Chérie" or the overlooked (and remarkable)"Meurtres " testify.And Billy Wilder stole the "Some like it hot" plot from him! "Un Oiseau Rare" begins quite well with a very modern subject: stupid slogans were a foretaste of the obnoxious world of advertising we are forced to live in.And the scene when all the executives are boot-lickers is still relevant today.In the tradition of Beaumarchais,the boss admits that all he had to do was to be born and to spend his daddy's dough (Some money remains cause I could not spend it all!)...
But all that takes place in the hotel which would like to prove the FRench proverb "L'Habit Ne Fait Pas Le Moine" (=One shouldn't judge by appearances ) is never really exciting nor really funny.All is too conventional.If Prévert means madness, wit, black humour and rebellion against established order,then you can pronounce him dead here.There's not even one line which is memorable .The bourgeois happy end takes the biscuit.Sorry Writer's ,but sometimes we do not agree...
