The Cupboard Was Bare (1952)
The aunt of Alfred Puc, a meek tax-collector in Paris, dies while riding in a moving van. The driver, not wishing to be bothered by a police interrogation, hides her corpse in a cupboard before notifying Alfred. But the van is stolen. Alfred, being the heir of a rich lady, begins a frantic search to locate the missing van and the cupboard because one can't claim an inheritance if there is no 'corpus delecti.' In his search, he gets caught up in an underworld web and finds the body of a murdered gangster in his room. He finally locates the cupboard but promptly loses it again. But, wait, it isn't "finis' time, yet.
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Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Absolutely brilliant
It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Finding that a French Challenge was running on ICM at the same time as a poll for the best films of 1948 was being held,I decided that I would try to combined the two as much as possible. Never having seen the actor despite reading dozens of reviews praising his films,I decided it was the perfect time to open the cupboard to Fernando.The plot:Waiting for his aunt to arrive, Alfred Puc by the driver bringing her over across the country that she suddenly died,and that not wanting to get accused of murder,he had her in a cupboard/furniture in back of his van. As the driver hands Puc the key to the cupboard, gangsters steal the van and its contents. The only one with a key,Puc goes in search to open a cupboard.View on the film:Feeling under pressure over the missing body of his aunt, Fernando gives a hilarious performance as Puc,whose attempts to keep his search undercover has Fernando bursting it at the seams. Unintentionally ending up in the underbelly of the town,Fernando dives into the slap-stick,with a frantic run to all the cupboards in the hotel,and high anxiety of his quest going over a waterfall. Dumping the corpse in a cupboard straight away,writer/director Carlo Rim keeps the gags moving at a lightning speed,by crossing the thugs and glitz of the "Caper" genre,with the race/chase Comedy of things getting increasingly absurd as Puc crosses the finish line to a wonderfully bonkers twist ending. Leaving Puc as the only one with a key to the cupboard,Rim lays on the glamour to every door Puc opens,to find a cupboard not bare.