La Bonne Soupe Reviews

Bell plays a middle-aged woman gambler who relates her life story to a casino croupier during a lapse in the action. Quickly switching to Girardot playing Bell at a younger age, the film goes from one situation to another, all a result of her romantic endeavors with a variety of men. In only one affair does she genuinely fall in love, this being with Brialy, a bartender whose life ends in tragedy when he is shot during an attempted robbery of the bar. Girardot/Bell eventually does settle down to a long and devoted marriage that produces a daughter. But this also ends as a result of Bell's succumbing to the seductiveness of the man (Marquand) who was to marry her daughter. LA BONNE SOUPE ends on a rather upbeat note with Bell leaving the gambling casino with millionaire Tone, continuing in the adventurous, romantic ways she had long followed. Episodic treatment hurts the pacing, but the capable performances, particularly of the various men popping in and out, manage to keep the happily hedonistic story interesting.