In Tunesia, medical student Paul Simay (Jean-Paul Belmondo) picks up
the rather plain & mousey Christine Dupont (Mia Farrow), &
eventually persuades her to let him help her lose her virginity - since he
always had a weakness for the not so beautiful women. However,
after one night of sin, he sneaks out of her hotelroom, in hopes to never
see her again.
Bourdeax, one year later, Paul runs across Christine again, & finds
out she is the daughter of Doctor Dupont (Daniel Lecourtois), one of his
professors at university, & the owner of a private hospital. For the
sake of his career, he dares not dump Christine a second time, &
eventually even marries her - & as a consequence, he soon takes over
her father's clinic ...
But at their marriage Paul's downfall begins when he lays eyes on
Christine's lovely sister Martine (Laura Antonelli), with whom he before
long falls in love ... but alas, she is engaged to someone else, &
eventually she even marries a simple farmer who loves his tractor more
than he could ever love a woman - so it's only fitting that Martine
eventually runs him over in his tractor by accident ...
Martine however marries again ... & again, but all her husbands
seem to be cursed, as they sem to have little accidents - & too often
to be coincidence, Paul has a part in these accidents. Eventually, Marinte
falls for his charms, & Paul starts to regularly feed his wife with
sleeping pills to sneak over to Martine's (who lives across the street)
& shag her. & when that doesn't stop her from bringing home more
fiancés, he impregnates her ... now that should do the trick.
Eventually, Martine has the child, but refuses to disclose the identity
of the father. Only she & Paul know, and Doctor Bertier (Daniel
Ivernel), Paul'S colleague at the hospital ...
Then though Paul has a car accident, & suddenly finds himself a
patient in his own hospital, in a casket covering almost his whole body.
& the injuries from the accident might very well leave him partially
paralyzed for the rest of his life. The Martine receives a letter that
Paul was a regular at the local whorehouse, & even though she herself
was only his mistress, her jealousy won't let her forgive him.
Furthermore, Paul receives news that his & Martine's daughter has
died. ...
Paul decides to confess everything to his wife, write a last letter
& commit suicide taking poison ... only when the poison already sets
in does his wife make her confession: She knew about his affair with
Martine all along, & at the same time had an affair with Doc Bertier,
who let her in on quite a few secrets about her husband - including the
kid he had with Martine. So it's only fair that Bertier in the meantime
has impregnated her ... but eventually, Christine & Bertier decided to
strike back & ruin him: they made up the whole story about the car
accident - which Paul never had, they just crashed his car, him not in it,
into a tree while he was sleeping it off & put him into a casket, so
upon waking up he was actually believing he had an accident under the
influence. then they gave him injections that paralyzed him, wrote MArtine
a letter about his visits to the whorehouse & blatantly lied to him
about his daughter's death ...
& suddenly Paul realizes he has been had.
In the end, in a rather unnecessary plottwist, he is saved
though.
In his time, Claude Chabrol made (& continues to make, actually)
some great films, mostly satires about the bourgeoisie disguised as
thrillers. Docteur Popaul however is a rather average efforts, it
starts out as a light (erotic) comedy, eventually takes a turn towards the
macabre (but is rather unoriginal at it, & only in the final quarter
of an hour, whent he thriller plot as such finally sets in, does the film
actually pack a punch - but unfortunately, that's too little too late -
& the happy ending takes much of the films impact, too.
|