L'Armoire volante

1948, France, directed by Carlo Rim

After enjoying La Maison Bonnadieu, I went in search of more by Carlo Rim. This feels very much like a Gallic Ealing picture, or at least Ealing on its more macabre days (there are, though, some very non-Ealing touches, such as the setting in a hotel which does a roaring trade in the short-staying customer). Fernandel, in unusually toned-down mode, features as a civil servant who is due an inheritance on the death of his aunt but needs her body in order to make his claim, and said corpse is notable mainly for its absence. There's a quite brilliant sequence in which the legal eagles outline the difference between a mere death -- of little consequence -- and a good, clean, legally-approved death with all its attendant paperwork.