My Father Was Right

“Women are made for marriage, and men are made to be bachelors. That’s the trouble!” Writer-director Guitry stars as a cuckold in a stuffed shirt whose wounded pride predestines his son for a lifelong suspicion of the fairer sex. But the film’s rapid-fire dialogue and huffy moralizing are only a disguise: its true beating heart is in this sweet depiction of paternal devotion and filial tenderness, spread evenly across three generations of befuddled Frenchmen. Hilarity ensues, as it so often does, when their seemingly unflappable bond between is tested by womanhood in all its wily unpredictability.