La Grande frousse
1964 Comedy / Crime / Thriller
|
Credits
|
|
|
Summary
When a notorious forger, Mickey-le -Bénédictin, escapes police custody and
execution, Inspector Triquet resolves to find him and let him know that, under French
law, he is now a free man. Triquet’s hunt leads him to the provincial town
of Barges, where the inhabitants are unutterably weird. In the course of Triquet’s
haphazard investigation, people start to die – first Franqui, who has been spying
on his neighbours, next the pharmacist... Then the legend of a mysterious wild beast
becomes reality when a strange creature is sighted in the nearby countryside. What
other terrible secrets does the town of Barges conceal…?
Review
One of the most memorable of Jean-Pierre Mocky’s anarchic film comedies, La
Grande frousse benefits from an exceptional "big name" cast, which is headed by
Bourvil, a popular and much-loved comic actor. An eccentric black comedy, there
are some similarities with the British “Ealing comedies” of the 1950s, although
the director’s intentions are more obviously satirical, if not downright subversive,
poking fun at the establishment and the peculiarities of provincial life. Whilst
the film is uneven and occasionally silly, there are some wonderfully funny moments.
Jean Poiret’s camp portrayal of a gendarme is not something you’d forget in
a hurry, to say nothing of Raymond Rouleau’s “obviously-the-villain”
mayor.
For its initial release in 1964, the film suffered from poor editing at the hands of its distributors. When the rights reverted to the film’s authors in 1972, Jean-Pierre Mocky reconstructed the film as he intended it, reinserting some cut sequences and giving it the title of the novel on which it was based, La Cité de l'indicible peur. © James Travers 2003 Write a review for this film... |
|
