"Le coup du berger" or "Checkmate" (actually the chess references really didn't work at all) is a French black-and-white film from 1956, so this one has its 60th anniversary this year. The writer and director was Jacques Rivette (died earlier this year rip) and he worked on the screenplay here together with Charles L. Bitsch and Claude Chabrool. The entire thing is based on a story by Roald Dahl. It runs for slightly under half an hour and let me start by saying that Virginie Vitry is absolutely gorgeous. Shame to see her career was so short-lived and her looks really make it difficult to find the ending realistic. Anyway, that's not a major problem as everything before is pretty good fun. It is about a young woman who has an affair and gets an expensive fur as a gift from her lover. But how can she wear the fur even in her husband's presence without telling him? There must be a way and they come up with a pretty smart plan. But things don't go as planned unluckily for her. I also liked the performance by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze as the husband. You never know how much he suspects. Everything or nothing? And in the end, he is the big winner somehow. I certainly enjoyed this little film and it shows us that Dahl was also brilliant away from the world of animals. Go check it out and don't forget subtitles if you're not fluent in French.
Review of Fool's Mate
