The Ordeal of Sacha Guitry

Throughout the occupation, M. Sacha Guitry, garrulous, versatile luminary of the French stage, accepted so many Nazi cheers that his countrymen threw him in jail after the liberation. The French courts cleared him of the charge of collaboration. But as Guitry found out in Lyon last week, some people of the Resistance had not.

Guitry's business in Lyon was the gala premieere of his newest film, The Comedian. It turned out to be one of his usual hits. When the show was over, he and his leading lady, Lina Marconi, were driven away for a gay supper. At the lowered barrier of a railway crossing, however, men sprang from the darkness. Said their leader: "We are terribly sorry, Monsieur Sacha Guitry, but we are men of the Resistance and we think it advisable that you come with us."

"But," said Sacha, "we haven't eaten."

"Neither have we," said the man of the Resistance.

Sacha's chauffeur was told to drive back to town. At the Place Bellecour, on the site of a monument to the Resistance, he was made to get out of the car. Said a patriot: "On this spot six of our men were odiously assassinated by the Nazis. If you did not know it, now you do. Take off your hat and observe one minute of silence." Clenching his teeth, Sacha complied. Notoriously fond of talking, he was silent for an entire minute. His captors took flashbulb pictures which turned up in the Lyon newspaper Le Progres. Humiliated but unharmed and untouched, he was then permitted to return to his hotel and leave town in the morning.

The French press, which somehow got all the details, had a field day. Headlined the Paris Liberation: SACHA GUITRY EXECUTED BY RIDICULE. Said Sacha: "This is a veritable scandal."

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