Hello, dear Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Oleg Eikhe, I consider myself a fan of historical cinema, and in this review I will try to share my feelings about the film about the greatest diplomat of France - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838).

For me, each film from my historical collection is already a huge value - after all, it contains only the most worthy ones. And the film "The Lame Devil" (French: Le Diable boiteux) still occupies one of the most important places.

Even though the picture was created in 1948 on black and white film, in our time, a time of endless special effects, the acting is mesmerizing! And for good reason. I would like to immediately note the talent of director Sasha Guitry, who not only accurately recreated the era of Napoleon, but also took it upon himself to act in the title role.

I must say that the director managed to convince me that Talleyrand really belongs to historical figures of global scale. Fans of Napoleon may find this film somewhat ironic, because here the French emperor, played perfectly by Emile Dran, is revealed as a hot-tempered, arrogant, treacherous man. But this is exactly how Talleyrand saw him, and this view is fully revealed in the painting by Sacha Guitry.

Lana Marconi, in the role of de Talleyrand's wife, helped me learn more about genuine French charm and the life of society ladies of those years. In principle, all the actors were chosen with taste, and Henry Laverne and Maurice Teynak in the roles of Louis 18th and Charles 10th are almost no different from the paintings of the French kings.

So 125 minutes or 2 hours 5 minutes - this is the duration of the picture - will fly by unnoticed if you decide to plunge into this biography of Talleyrand, shot by the inimitable Sacha Guitry!