That Droopy Look -- March 2021 Inklings

I'm squeaking in at the last moment (or, nearly) to join in this month's Inklings link-up hosted by Heidi at Along the Brandywine.  You may remember this series from a few years ago, and Heidi has recently revived it!  The idea is that she gives us a prompt, and we post something relating to it during the month.  She collects up all the entries and shares them the next month when she posts the new prompt.  I've been participating on my book blog so far this year, but today, I'm taking the action over here because I want to share a scene from a movie instead of a book.

This month, the prompt is: A scene involving a mirror in book or film.  And the first one that popped into my mind was a scene in the film We're No Angels (1955).  It's such a funny scene, and my husband loves to quote it.

It all begins when Paul Trochard (John Baer) discovers that his uncle Andre (Basil Rathbone) is dead.  He retires to his room to collect himself.  He's followed by two convicts, Jules (Peter Ustinov) and Albert (Aldo Ray).  They arrive in time to see Paul making melancholy faces in the mirror.

He wipes imaginary tears from his cheeks.

And then he bursts out laughing because he can't wait to inherit his miserly uncle's fortune.

Albert and Jules watch and smirk until Paul realizes ::gasp!:: that he's not alone.

Jules congratulates him my saying, "That droopy look of yours -- very effective.  It'll look wonderful at the graveside."

Paul says, "Leave me alone!  Can't you see how upset I am by my uncle's death?"

Albert agrees, "I can hardly keep from laughing, myself."

It's just a tiny little snippet of a scene, but there's so much good character-enriching stuff, and it really is very funny, though I'm sure the humor doesn't come across as effectively in a blog post.

Interestingly enough, the last time I did an Inklings link-up post on this blog was in March of 2016.  Do you know what movie I chose to highlight five years ago?  We're No Angels.  Only the prompt was about letters that time, and you can read that post here.  When I chose this scene, I didn't realize I'd used this same movie for this link-up, much less that it was the last one I did back then, or that it was five years ago this month, but I love this symmetry!

If you like dark comedy, definitely find and watch We're No Angels.  Technically, it's a Christmas movie, but I watch it any time of year!