Guitry's story of a cheat is an extraordinary depiction of 1936 French society.It chronicles the world of young people leaving the depressed farm areas to seek work in the isolating commerce and industry, a world that the JOC and trade unions were addressing. That two women aided the cheat in his crime shows Guitry's awareness of the problem of more women than men in the population and the consequent rise of the deplorable 'new women'. The cheat is a common place man who relinquishes his life of crime when he discovers he has cheated a man who was injured in the war by shielding the cheat. The hilarious irony in Guitry's art is that the cheat's lifetime of crime has served as an apprenticeship to an employable skill. He can earn a decent living as a security guard.
Review of The Story of a Cheat
