In Case of Emergency
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Je n'ai jamais pris la vie au tragique. Je m'en défends encore. Je cherche à rester objectif, à me juger et à juger les autres froidement. Je cherche surtout à comprendre."--En cas de malheur (1956) by Simenon |
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In Case of Emergency (1957, En cas de malheur) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon.
It was adapted for film as In Case of Adversity in 1958 by Claude Autant-Lara, starring Jean Gabin, Brigitte Bardot and Edwige Feuillère.
It tells the story of a married lawyer who rigs a trial to acquit a young female criminal he has become obsessed with, even to the point of imagining they might have a life together and start a family.
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Plot
Something fatal slipped into the existence of Lucien Gobillot, at a time when his professional success and his social reputation have become the fruits of an ambitious marriage and some legal complacency.
What could have been only a passing without a future, like those that his wife Viviane consents to him with a protective complicity, gradually takes on importance. Soon Lucien Gobillot begins to relate this evolution in a very personal file titled “In case of emergency. "
It all started with a shameless girl, Yvette, who appeared in his office with a case difficult to defend: the assault of an old watchmaker, in his shop, in order to rob him. The young delinquent, in order to be accepted despite her total lack of resources, reveals her charms (her triangle) to the lawyer, who does not even seem moved. Gobillot succeeds in getting her acquitted. That same evening, he will join her: it's passion and adventure.
An instinctive female who cannot resist men, Yvette nonetheless becomes attached to Gobillot as to a savior, to the point that at his request, she rejects a fanatic lover, Mazetti, ready to marry her. The lawyer is more and more torn between his social obligations and Yvette, who must both be watched over and defended against a rival rejected but not resigned. He installs Yvette at first modestly, then soon at quai d'Orléans, in his own world; which means for his wife that the situation is likely to escape him this time. In order to retain Yvette, Gobillot goes so far as to let himself be drawn into erotic games with her maid. After another appearance from Mazetti, he decides to take his mistress to winter sports, while his still gullible wife prepares for the French Riviera. Yvette is expecting a child and he asks her to keep it. One day, shortly before Christmas, she does not come back to the apartment.
After a night of research, Gobillot learns that she was found stabbed in a neighborhood hotel. She had joined Mazetti there and, as she wanted to leave, he killed her.
From the Riviera, Gobillot is completing his file: he will entrust it to his colleague responsible for handling the Mazetti affair. As for him, he will continue "to defend scoundrels".
Data sheet of the book
Space-time frame
Space
Time
Contemporary period.
The characters
Main character
Lucien Gobillot. Lawyer at the Court of Appeal of Paris. Married, no children. 45 years old.
Other characters
- Viviane, wife of Gobillot, widow of a lawyer who was once boss of Gobillot.
- Yvette Maudet, without profession, 20 years old.
- Mazetti, medical student working the night as a laborer, Yvette’s lover.
