The Devil By The Tail May 2026

The narrative centers on a family of impoverished aristocrats living in a decaying 17th-century chateau. To maintain their ancestral home and their dignity, the family—led by the indomitable Marquise de Guérande—operates a hotel of dubious quality. The plot is set in motion by a deliberate act of sabotage; the family’s mechanic purposefully breaks down cars on the nearby highway to force travelers to stay the night. This desperate scheme brings a charismatic criminal, Cesar Maricorne, into their orbit. Cesar is fleeing a bank heist with a suitcase full of money, and his arrival transforms the chateau from a sleepy trap into a stage for a complex game of greed, charm, and romance.

Ultimately, The Devil by the Tail is a celebration of human ingenuity and the absurd lengths people will go to protect their way of life. It avoids moralizing, choosing instead to find humor in the flaws of its characters. By the film’s conclusion, the lines between the "honest" aristocrats and the "dishonest" criminal have blurred, suggesting that everyone is, in some way, holding the devil by the tail. It remains a classic of French cinema, remembered for its charm, its cast, and its delightful refusal to take the world too seriously. The Devil by the Tail

A major theme of the film is the collision between tradition and survival. De Broca explores how the aristocracy must compromise its historical identity to exist in a capitalist world. The Marquise and her granddaughter, played by Marthe Keller, are not portrayed as tragic relics but as adaptable, albeit eccentric, entrepreneurs. The chateau itself acts as a character, representing both a burden of the past and a playground for the present. The film suggests that the "devil" of the title is not just the criminal Cesar, but the temptation of easy wealth that threatens to corrupt the family’s noble, if misguided, values. The narrative centers on a family of impoverished