alr

It Happened at the Inn
(Goupi mains rouges)

Screening on Film
Directed by Jacques Becker.
With Fernand Ledoux, Georges Rollin, Blanchette Brunoy.
France, 1943, 16mm, black & white, 104 min.
French with English subtitles.

Like Clouzot, Jacques Becker incorporates the pervasive malaise of the period in a work that examines the impact of a murder on an isolated rural community populated with an eccentric cast of characters. In this noirish comic thriller, the Goupis, a hard-working family with a deep-seated distrust of outsiders, find their world turned upside-down following a visit by the youngest family member, who makes his living in Paris. The family’s ancestral treasure disappears, the housekeeper is found dead, and the eldest Goupi is rendered mute after being knocked unconscious. Among the ensemble, Rollin is particularly effective in his sympathetic characterization of the young Goupi-Monsieur, providing a welcome counterpoint to the overwhelming societal cynicism displayed by the rest of the family.

Part of film series

Read more

Les Années Noires: French Film During the Occupation, Part 2

Other film series with this film

Read more

Rediscovering Jacques Becker

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Psychedelic Cinema

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more

António Campos and the Promise of Cinema Novo

Read more
sepia photo of Artie Freedman in silhouette with a video camera at show

Boston Punk Rewound / Unbound. The Arthur Freedman Collection

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a mausoleum that looks like a miniature Spanish cathedral, next to a variety of others, against an evening sky

The Night Watchman by Natalia Almada

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

Read more
a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil