Boléro (1942)
Directed by Jean Boyer

Film Review

Oh, what a tangled web...  The perils of living in a post-truth world are brought home with a vengeance in this fiendishly convoluted farce, based on a play by Michel Duran and directed with his customary comic verve by director Jean Boyer.  As one outrageous deception is mercilessly trounced by another, and then another, until the battling protagonists lose themselves (and all sense of reality) in a thick forest of elaborate lies, you are left feeling as if your head is about to explode, and the only thing that prevents the film from being the most excruciating torture is that it is hilarious from start to finish - thanks to the lively turns from its magnificent comedy ensemble.

Boléro takes its title, naturally, from that famous piece by Maurice Ravel, the one that seems to go on and on and on forever as you listen to it in the forlorn hope that you will live long enough to see the end of it.  How fitting that this should be the piece that drives poor, easily rattled André Luguet to distraction, proving that whatever other virtues Ravel's music may have it is no substitute for a cup of Lemsip.  Subjected to an unceasing onslaught of Bolero as he tries to navigate his way through a jungle of fibs, is it any wonder that Luguet becomes so far gone that he ends up vocalising the demonic theme in a dying man's delirium - a fate that is no doubt commonplace amongst devotees of Ravel's music.  Denise Grey, apparently immune to the harmful effects of this musical composition, is the one who subjects Mr Luguet to this terrible ordeal, aided and abetted by Arletty (in the most fantastically implausible headgear you can imagine) and a butch Jacques Dumesnil, who looks like a left-over from a James Cagney movie.

It's hard not to be dazzled by the star power that the film chucks out at us, like a supernova gone berserk, but it's worth remembering that the film was made during the dark days of the Occupation and wartime French audiences needed far more than your desultory little comedy to keep their spirits up.  If your average American screwball comedy of the 1930s scores 8 on a scale of one to ten in dizzying energy output, Boléro probably rates about 11 and a half.  You can't see the wires, but I'll wager each member of the principal cast was wired up to some kind of dynamo, if not the national grid. You've never seen such a feverish exhibition of hyperactive performers.

Not only was Jean Boyer one of the most prolific and successful French film directors of the 1930s and '40s, he had an almost unbeaten track record when it came to turning out comedies that French cinema audiences of this period would delight in.  Arletty had featured in two of his earlier comedies - La Chaleur du sein (1938) and  Circonstances atténuantes (1939) - and in doing so proved her worth as a highly capable comic performer.  André Luguet was no less a talent and his against-the-grain pairing with Arletty is surely Boléro's most inspired touch - their scenes together at the start of the film (before the plot convolutions begin giving you a migraine) are the among the funniest in Boyer's entire oeuvre.

As Luguet's unforgiving girlfriend, Meg Lemonnier has much less of an impact and whatever thunder she brings to the film is well and truly stolen by Denise Grey, who plays Luguet's neighbour from Hell (how else does one describe someone with a pathological liking for Ravel?).  In a career that spanned eighty years, Grey brought her immense talents to many a memorable French film but here she is at her absolute best, the perfect comedy foil to both Luguet and Arletty.  On the subject of scene-stealing divas, Simone Signoret appears briefly in the film (as a fashion house employee) right at the start of her career - it would be another four years before audiences would notice her, in Marcel Blistène's Macadam (1946).

Arletty has her costume designer Robert Piguet (one of France's most esteemed fashion designers, second only to Christian Dior) to thank for Denise Grey not relegating her to supporting artiste.  Sporting a ditsy hat equipped with Minnie Mouse ears and jewelled horns that make her resemble a lusty satyr (to say nothing of her stunning, swirly patterned gowns) Arletty would have had a hard job being eclipsed by an exploding supergiant star let alone a slightly more mature actress, but in a high spirited imbroglio of this kind, with talent bursting from just about every crevice and gags being let off like fireworks at a pyrotechnics convention, the lanky actress was wise not to take any chances. Arletty is the star of the film and she is the one we are supposed to notice, and short of plastering her from head to foot in phosphorescent paint, Piguet could not have done more to get this result. Strange, though, that the jewel-horned femme fatale look never caught on.

Film Synopsis

Afflicted with a severe throat infection, Rémi Courmont finds himself confined to his Parisian apartment but his hopes of a peaceful recuperation are dashed by his downstairs neighbour, Anne-Marie Houillier.  A well-known fashion designer with an ego to match, the latter has become addicted to Maurice Ravel's Bolero and plays the music over and over again on her record player, much to the annoyance of her stricken neighbour.  As Anne-Marie hosts one of her noisy soirees, Rémi loses his cool and starts hammering on her ceiling with a big wooden stick.  Not long afterwards, an attractive woman he has never seen before shows up on Rémi's doorstep and seeks his help as an architect in renovating a farm she has just acquired.

Introducing herself as Joan of Arc, the woman soon convinces Rémi she is completely off her rocker, but before he can rid himself of this mad woman another stranger - this time a man with the physique of a boxer - appears and begins subjecting him to his jealous husband routine.  The situation is rescued by yet another stranger, who convinces Rémi that the mysterious woman fixated on farm renovations is in reality an important spy named Catherine.  Who should then show up but Rémi's girlfriend Niquette, who storms out in disgust on seeing her prospective husband in the arms of another woman.  Not long after the weird entourage has left his apartment Rémi realises he has been the victim of a practical joke concocted by his downstairs neighbour.

Once he has patched things up with Niquette, Rémi tries to get his own back by getting his girlfriend to stage a suicide attempt in his neighbour's apartment.  The ruse is soon discovered, but by this time Rémi's health has taken a turn for the worse and he ends up in bed, attentively nursed by Catherine and Annie-Marie.   By now it is apparent to Rémi's best friend Paul that Rémi is in love with Catherine, so he wastes no time in revealing to Niquette how he feels about her.  Stricken with guilt for the muddle she has created, Anne-Marie conspires with her doctor to unravel the tangled threads and ensure that the farce has a happy ending.  Rémi is far from pleased to discover that he has contracted an incurable pneumonia...