Les Dégourdis de la 11ème (1937)
Directed by Christian-Jaque

Film Review

In the 1930s, the first decade of his mammoth screen career, Fernandel lent his talents to around forty film comedies but only a fraction of these hold up well today and can legitimately pass for grown-up entertainment.  The best Fernandel films of this decade tend to be ones directed by what we now consider to be significant film directors, those whose work has stood the test of time - Marcel Pagnol, Marc Allégret, Maurice Tourneur and Christian-Jaque.  In this impressive roll-call, only Christian-Jaque really knew how to show Fernandel at his comedic best - the films that these two made together are among the most entertaining that the comedy giant ever appeared in.

Having already directed Fernandel in two very successful films - Un de la légion (1936) and François Ier (1937) - Christian-Jaque completed a hat-trick of sure-fire hits with Les Dégourdis de la 11e, an outrageous farce that is easily the funniest (and possibly silliest) film he ever made.  Any film that has a toga-wearing Fernandel pressing his lips against a blacked-up Pauline Carton, the latter naively under the impression that she can boost army morale and save a colonel's career by staging a Roman orgy in his home (with a little help from Ginette Leclerc), has to be a winner.  The premise is a tad ridiculous, the denouement about as surprising as a bomb primed to explode at a set time, but the gags (an abundance of both the scripted and visual variety) are so witty and so brilliantly executed that you just cannot help laughing all the way through.

There are two things in the film's favour, and these are the two things that separate the great Fernandel comedies from the ones that are best forgotten - a brilliant script and an even better cast.  Les Dégourdis de la 11e is based on a play of the same title by André Mouezy-Eon, a French playwright of the early 20th century whose speciality was exuberant military comedies of this kind.   He is best known today for his play Tire au flanc, which has been adapted for cinema many times, first by Jean Renoir in 1928, most successfully by Fernand Rivers in 1949.  Les Dégourdis de la 11e was incredibly raunchy for its time and was still pretty risqué when Christian-Jaque attempted to bring it to cinema screens in the mid-1930s.  It's a play that proves that the double entendre is far from being an exclusively British phenomenon.

The task of adapting the Mouezy-Eon's saucy play, and ensuring it met with the censor's approval, fell to two young, fairly inexperienced writers, Jean Anouilh and Jean Aurenche, who would both go on to have immense careers.  Anouilh became one of France's great dramatists, best known for his acclaimed 1943 play Antigone.  Aurenche would be one of French cinema's most prolific screenwriters, first pursuing a successful partnership with fellow writer Pierre Bost (on numerous classics that include Douce and Le Diable au corps), and later scripting some of Bertrand Tavernier's early films (Le Juge et l'assassin, Coup de torchon).

By now, French cinema audiences were used to seeing Fernandel in military comedies of this kind - Maurice Tourneur's Les Gaîtés de l'escadron (1932), Victor Tourjansky's L'Ordonnance (1933), Henry Wulschleger's Le Train de 8 heures 47 (1934), and many others.  What sets Les Dégourdis de la 11e apart is that it keeps all the familiar archetypes - the blustering old officer, the inept orderly, the rebellious squaddies, the interfering superiors - and thrusts them into the most absurd imbroglio, but in a way that has at least the illusion of plausibility about it.  A colonel is ordered to improve the morale of his men.  His sister has written a play.  What could be more logical than to put on an amateur show for the troops?  The colonel might have reconsidered staging a play titled The Roman Orgy if he had known that an inspector was coming to observe moral behaviour in his barracks, but these things happen.  Life abounds with career-wrecking coincidences of this kind.

Les Dégourdis de la 11e has a great script and Christian-Jaque tackles it with his customary flair so that not one gag goes astray, but the film's biggest ace up its well-stuffed sleeve is a cast of impeccable quality.  Fernandel may have received top billing but the stars of the film are undoubtedly André Lefaur and Pauline Carton, whose combined eccentricity attains such hysterical proportions that you wonder if your heart can withstand this laughter-inducing onslaught.  Lefaur was one of the leading French comic actors of his day, the man who created the central role in Pagnol's famous stage play Topaze and was unrivalled when it came to playing absurd authority figures.  He was pretty well guaranteed to steal the film with his wicked take on the kind of fusty old military officer that the French loved poking fun at (or loved sucking up to when the country was under Nazi control).  Lefaur's attempt to explain the meaning of the word 'orgy' will have you in stitches.

Lefaur's Colonel Touplard may be a bare-faced caricature but it's hard not to sympathise with him - a man tormented by a dangerously repressed libido and a completely demented sister who thinks she is Racine incarnated, to say nothing of the ranks of ingrates under his command who threaten mutiny on account of his liking for long walks in the country.  As Lefaur's demonic sister, Pauline Carton gets her chance to show her own comedy prowess (too often in her career she was relegated to supporting roles that you hardly notice) and she grabs it with just about every appendage Nature has endowed her with.  Lefaur and Carton could have carried this film by themselves - but throw in Fernandel, Ginette Leclerc (obvious casting for the part of the 'virgin at the orgy') and Saturnin Fabre (terrifying as the epitome of French officialdom at its most merciless) and you have a frantically funny farce that will make you laugh your head off, unless you hold on to it very tightly.

Film Synopsis

Montauban, 1906.  On his wife's deathbed, Colonel Touplard swore that he would never look at another woman for as long as he lived.  Being a red-blooded male who is far from immune to the allure of the female form, he has lived in a state of nervous tension ever since.  It is only by taking long walks that he can calm his nerves and subdue his libido, and because he hates walking by himself he has to take his entire company with him.  The result: there is not a man under his command without a stiff leg. Morale is so low that the Colonel has orders from his superiors to lift their spirits.

The Colonel's spinster sister Hortensia has the solution.  A budding playwright, she has written a five act play entitled The Roman Orgy which she is certain will appeal to the artistic tastes of the humble soldier.  With no other prospect of salvation on the horizon, the Colonel agrees and immediately sets about casting the play, which he is sure will be a great success.  Three of his company - Patard, Pomme and Salé - are selected to play the libidinous Romans, Hortensia will portray a black slave girl, and the part of the virgin heroine is gladly accepted by a seductive young actress who appears willing to do anything (anything?) for the now desperate Touplard.

As rehearsals get under way in the Colonel's quarters, the most intimidating example of officialdom turns up at the railway station.  This is Inspector Burnous, who has been charged with a special mission to report on the moral conduct of the men under Colonel Touplard's command.  What he discovers surpasses his wildest expectations.  Forcing his way into the Colonel's house he is rendered speechless by the spectacle of depravity that greets his eyes: young men draped in togas and garlands, semi-naked women in suggestive poses....  There's even a moth-eaten lion prowling the corridors, presumably hoping to make a meal of any stray Christian it can find.  Colonel Touplard has a great deal to explain...