Jacques Becker's droll satire plays itself out on several uneasy social borders--between city and country folk, family and outside community, men and women. Filmed in stunning, shadowy black and white, it is rather haunting in its mixture of lighthearted and gallows humor. A city slicker departs Paris for the wilds--that is, the provinces--and arrives in fear and trembling at the home of his country family, the Goupis, from whom he has been estranged for some 25 years. What he discovers chez les Goupis is a family of eccentrics resembling the You Can't Take It With You clan, transported to the country. His arrival, though awaited by all, is easily eclipsed by the birth of a calf in the barn, and thus he enters on a house empty save for a kitten...and a corpse. And so begins a murder mystery that pits cousin against cousine, Goupi against Goupi, and all against the outside world. Pierre Véry's script is delightfully literary, and never misses a turn, beginning with the names of the characters themselves--nicknames designated by temperament and established by time--from Teaspoon, the harridan lady of the house who is eventually given a taste of her own medicine; to the black-sheep Red-Hands of the film's title; to cousin Tonkin, alienated ex-marine longing for the blue skies of Vietnam.

Please note: Goupi Mains-Rouges repeated Tuesday, July 6.