Le Château de verre (1950)

Happily married to Laurent Bertal (Jean Servais), a magistrate in Bern, Switzerland, Évelyne (Michèle Morgan) would be perfectly happy if her husband did not tend to neglect her for his work. During a stay in Italy on the shores of Lake Como with her husband and their friend Elena (Elisa Cegani), Évelyne meets Rémi Marsay (Jean Marais), a representative of an industrial firm and a womanizing gambler who seduces her despite herself. After this brief infatuation, he returns to Paris and she to Bern, happy to see her young son, “little bear,” again, but still irresistibly drawn to Rémi. Suspecting something, her husband Laurent questions Elena, who describes it as nothing more than harmless flirtation. Nevertheless, tension sets in between the couple. Évelyne disagrees with Laurent, the prosecutor at the trial of Louise Morel, a poor woman accused of killing her possessive mother-in-law to keep her husband. Évelyne understands the woman’s crime of passion, while Laurent uses every means at his disposal to convict her: “I have to find the exact torture that will make this woman talk.” Meanwhile, Rémi has returned to his regular mistress, Marion (Élina Labourdette), an antiques dealer to whom he is accustomed to recounting all his romantic adventures. Jealous, she urges him to ask Évelyne to join him in Paris, certain it will be no more than a fling, because Rémi is a womanizer, incapable of love. At first reluctant, Évelyne eventually goes to Paris, while Laurent believes she is staying in the country with Elena. However, once she arrives in the capital, she realizes how daring she has been and considers turning back. But after spending a day visiting Paris with Rémi, torn between passion and guilt, she becomes his mistress, and for her it is another life. Rémi suddenly realizes that he is in love with her and asks her to leave Laurent. Évelyne wants to, but insists on returning to explain herself to her husband, determined to gain her freedom. But this love affair with no future, this “glass castle,” is going to shatter, like the two lovers, who in turn hurt themselves as they walk over shards of glass. Their temporary goodbyes drag on. Rémi wants to keep her, while Évelyne plays for time, moving the clock hands forward an hour to simulate what is going to happen. In the end, she misses her train to Bern and takes a plane that will never reach its destination. She dies in the crash that occurs during takeoff. Laurent eventually realizes that Elena, “the family friend,” had concealed Évelyne’s escapade from him: the two women who mattered to him had deceived him.