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French films Comedy
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Jacques Tati’s first full-length film, Jour de fête paints a beautifully evocative and detailed picture of life in a provincial French town just after the War. The film is actually a longer version of an earlier Tati film, L’école des facteurs and is notable for a number of reasons. Primarily, the film established Tati as one of the great comic legends of French...
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Possibly the most inspired screen adaptation of a Feydeau farce, Claude Autant-Lara’s Occupe-toi d’Amélie is unquestionably one of the highpoints of 1940s French cinema, a brisk and hilarious piece of anti-bourgeois satire that is as fresh and entertaining today as it was when it was made. Ebullient performances from a very distinguished cast (headed by the magnificent...
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Whilst it now feels dated and painfully lacking in sophistication, this lightweight comedy was an appropriate vehicle for popular actor-comedian Fernandel, allowing him once more to delight his audience with his portrayal of a likeable simpleton who has a knack of getting into trouble. The rambling narrative, bland characterisation and lazy direction do little to endear the film to a modern...
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La Rue sans loi is a boisterous farce inspired by the comic creations of Albert Dubout, a legendary cartoon artist of the 1940s. Dubout’s characters such as Sparadra, Anatole and Fifille are brought to life with great gusto by a cast of talented comic performers, including André Gabriello, Paul Demange and an outrageously dragged up Max Dalban...
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René Clair’s telling of the Faustian myth is a characteristically tongue in cheek rendition of the famous tale, reminiscent in style to his earlier American film, I Married a Witch (1942). Both films rely heavily on special effects and unusual photography to emphasise the supernatural elements of the plot, but in a way that is intentionally comical...
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Le Rosier de Madame Husson is an engaging comic farce based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant. The setting, characters and dialogue are typical creations of Marcel Pagnol, one of French cinema’s greatest writers, and the film captures the charm of life in a rural Provençal community, principally through the well-rounded characters which bring the story to life...
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Although too obviously intended as a vehicle for popular music hall performer Maurice Chevalier, Ma pomme nevertheless makes an entertaining comedy whilst telling a thoughtful morality tale about man’s unhealthy affinity with money. The film includes some pleasing performances, notably from Sophie Desmarets (playing a gold digger who has evidently lost interest in money)...
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Film musicals are a rare phenomenon in French cinema, with only a few such films (for example, René Clair’s Le Million) bearing comparison with their American counterparts. Of those French films which are nominally classified as musicals most are anything but, with the music often lazily inserted into the narrative as a cheap time-filler...
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Andalousie is a film version of one of a number of popular operettas starring the Spanish popular music idol of the late 1940s, Luis Mariano. Although the film now looks somewhat dated and unsophisticated, it was hugely successful in its day, and its blend of comedy, romantic drama and music is not unappealing. Extensive location filming...
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In this slightly stilted, but still entertaining, film adaptation of de Jules Romains’ popular stage play, Louis Jouvet gives one of his most commanding performances as the irresistibly persuasive Dr Knock. Jouvet had previous played the part of Knock in a film of 1933 (which the Jouvet co-directed) and also on stage in 1923 and 1933...
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If you ignore the lengthy and self-indulgent opening sequence (in which Sacha Guitry tells a rather embarrassed Michel Simon what a good actor he is), La Poison is a rather entertaining black comedy. Contrary to what Guitry seems to think, Simon needs no introduction and his performance in this film stands as one of his finest...
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A fine example of French comic farce from the 1950s, Jean Boyer’s Le Passe-muraille is best known for effectively launching the film career of its star, Bourvil. Better known as a stage comic and singer at the time, Bourvil demonstrates in this film that he also has a formidable talent as an actor. Although he plays a comic role...
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Although this film now feels very dated and just a tad ridiculous (almost the parody of a French bedroom farce), it was hugely popular when it was first released in France, and effectively secured André Hunebelle’s career as a director of popular films. Whilst there are some good jokes, much of the comedy is painfully unsophisticated...
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By the time Sacha Guitry came to make Tu m’as sauvé la vie, a film adaptation of one of his later stage plays, he had become an object of contempt and ridicule in the eyes of many critics. Certainly, some (not all) of Guitry’s work in his later years lacks the sparkle of his earlier successes, but the criticism was often over the top and veered towards personal abuse...
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In this re-make of a popular 1932 French film directed by Réné Guissart, that incomparable "fou de rire" Fernandel regales us with one of his most memorable comic performances. Here he plays an ambitious hairdresser who is prepared to do anything to rise to the top of his profession, including getting entangled with man-hungry society ladies...
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The most notable thing about this low-key comedy is that it marks the film début of Brigitte Bardot. Far from being the sex goddess which she became a few years later, Bardot is cast in the role of a stereotypical nice young woman of her era, although her screen presence is to be noted. The film will appeal most to fans of the popular comic actor...
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Already renowned for his acutely surreal and optimistic view of life, director René Clair surpassed himself with this outlandish romantic fantasy. As French matinee idol Gérard Philipe is propelled through history and cardboard Freudian dreamscapes, into the arms of such beauties as Martine Carol and Gina Lollobrigida...
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French cinema’s master of film comedy Fernandel is on top form in this outrageous farce, which is based on the popular play by Emile Mazaud. The film also features Jacqueline Bouvier (credited as Jacqueline Pagnol), who was – at the time – married to Marcel Pagnol, the film’s very distinguished screenwriter...
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Jules Dassin was the man who was originally slated to direct Fernandel in this lavish gangster film parody. When he was unable to return to the United States to shoot the film’s exterior locations scenes, he was replaced by Henri Verneuil, who had previously worked with Fernandel on a number of occasions. Verneuil succeeds in evoking the essence of the American gangster film...
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In the fourth of his nine film collaborations with director Henri Verneuil, Fernandel gives a characteristically touching and whimsical performance as the temperamental village baker. Music for the film was composed by Nino Rota, who is better known for scoring the films of the great Italian film director, Federico Fellini....
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