“Madame de Thaller spends a great deal,” she stammered.“My husband often made important purchases for her account.”“That is all,” continued the shop-keeper, “or rather, excuse me, no:every Saturday, for many years, M. and Mme.“Who can the man be looking for?” wondered the idle neighbors, closely watching his evolutions.“M.Vincent Favoral,” he began, “is a man some fifty-two or three years old, but who looks younger, not having a single gray hair.But she is not young any more; and people get accustomed to every thing, you know.No material pleasure can possibly cure his agony.Parisian above all, the commissary has had ample time to study his ground when he was yet only a peace-officer.Watching Other People’s Money more than a quarter-century after its release can be something of an eye-opener.Gregory Peck’s words and delivery here reminded me of the key scenes in a lot of the Frank Capra classics, where the little guy stood up and defended old-fashioned American values, and got a standing ovation, and the movie was over.He wished, he said, he could have lived eighteen hundred years, to follow the evolutions of that penny, to see it grow tenfold, a hundred-fold, produce, swell, enlarge, and become, after centuries, millions and hundreds of millions.Whilst they were discussing with him through the door, he had perfectly well understood that they were only trying to gain time; and, if he had not at once burst in the door, it was solely owing to his respect for M. Desormeaux himself, whom he knew personally, and still more for his title of head clerk at the Department of Justice.She had terrible temptations at this time, when she was not yet twenty, and they called her the beautiful Mme.
Favoral.DeVito’s Lawrence Garfield is a more gauche, less charismatic version of Gordon Gekko.The way to make a killing is to get rid of the wire & cable division, which is running at a loss, and keep everything else.“Where are Mlle. Gilberte and M. Maxence Favoral?”Jorgy, defending the livelihood of his employees, won’t hear of it. Undaunted, Lawrence starts the proceedings that will lead to a hostile takeover.There is a man whom you could trust with your funds, if you had any, without fear of his ever running off to Belgium with them.”He repeated to her constantly that she had connived with her father to “take him in,” to fleece him, to ruin him.He was interrupted by the arrival of the locksmith, who, in less than five minutes, had picked all the locks of the old desk.Larry wants to raid the company, break it up, strip the assets, and sell the profitable divisions.His daughter, Mlle. Gilberte, interrupted him:And beckoning to the agents who accompanied him to stop at the door,—“Monsieur Vincent Favoral?” he inquired.Was it forced in over Jewison’s objections?
Was it the director’s idea? Was it in the original play?The work woman whom her husband beats, and the great lady whom her husband cheats, have both come to him.The last scene undoubtedly hurts the movie as a whole but there are enough good things – from DeVito’s performance to the speeches to the loving shots of the Twin Towers – to warrant a look for those who may have dismissed the film in 1991 or who never saw it.Lawrence isn’t a villain in the traditional sense of the word because there’s a solid rationale behind his actions that has everything to do with making money for the stockholders.All around were evidences, if not exactly of poverty, at least of small means, and of the artifices of a respectable economy.The movie climaxes with both men presenting their cases ahead of a tense vote.Certainly, had the unhappy woman known where to find a refuge, she would have fled from that home where each of her days was but a protracted torture.