Knave of Hearts (UK)

Résumé

Is confiding in women the surest way to seduce them ? This is what André Ripois believes when he starts to tell Patricia, his wife’s best friend, the story of his lamentable past, (seen in flashbacks). Bored by his London job (he was a lowly office clerk) he had hoped that, by seducing Anne, his supervisor, things would improve But Anne was as tyrannical a lover as a boss. Besides, being French, Ripois found her English cooking inedible. He left Anne for Norah, an innocent young girl he met on a bus and soon seduced. But when Norah started talking about marriage, he fled. Finally, fired from his job and soon thrown out of his lodgings for non-payment of the rent, he had been reduced to wandering homeless and hungry around London until Marcelle, a kindly French prostitute, took pity on him and offered him shelter. By way of thanks he stole money from her and started giving French lessons. Although he was less than mediocre as a teacher, Catherine, one of his rich clients, fell in love with him. They married, but now, tired of his infidelities, she has decided to divorce him. Taking advantage of her absence, Ripois invites her best friend Patricia to dinner, hoping to seduce her, but in vain. He threatens to throw himself off the balcony if she continues to say no…but slips and falls. André Ripois will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, pushed around by his happily reconciled wife who has convinced herself that it was despair at losing her which drove him to suicide.