Babette s'en va-t-en guerre (1959)
Directed by Christian-Jaque

Film Review

This good-humoured wartime comedy was directed by Christian-Jaque, who is probably best known for his historical adventure films Fanfan la Tulipe (1952) and La Tulipe noire (1964).  Producer Raoul Lévy initially offered the directing job to Roger Vadim, but he declined when Martine Carol turned down the leading role and was replaced by Brigitte Bardot.  The film was an enormous gamble, since it was the first time that a comic film about World War II was made in France.  The film's commercial success revealed a rich seam which other film makers were only too eager to tap into - the most successful being Gérard Oury with his 1966 film La Grande vadrouille (the most popular film ever made in France).

Having built a reputation as a sex temptress in such films as Roger Vadim's Et Dieu... créa la femme (1956), Brigite Bardot makes a surprising return here to the innocent good girl persona of her earliest films.  Babette s'en va-t-en guerre clearly does little to exploit either Bardot's sex appeal or her acting ability, but it is a treat to see her appear alongside her real-life husband of the time, Jacques Charrier.  The one member of the cast who stands out most is Francis Blanche, who is absolutely hilarious as the comically sadistic Gestapo chief.  Admittedly, he does get all the best jokes - courtesy of ace screenwriter Michel Audiard - but Blanche's rotund physique and larger-than-life personality (to say nothing of his energy and mad sense of fun) makes him the film's greatest asset and arguably the best caricature of a fascistic madman since Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940).

Film Synopsis

In 1941, not long after France has fallen to Nazi Germany, a young French woman named Babette works as a housekeeper for Lieutenant Gérard de Crécy at the London Headquarters of Free France.  It so happens that Babette bears an uncanny physical resemblance to the mistress of General von Arenberg, the officer who is leading the preparations for a German invasion of England.  Before she knows it, Babette is recruited by British Intelligence and trained as a special agent so that she can lure the General into an ambush, thereby thwarting or at least delaying the invasion.  Not long after Babette and Gérard have been parachuted into Occupied France the well-planned scheme starts to go awry.  Babette is separated from the lieutenant and ends up a prisoner of the notorious Gestapo chief Shultz.  Bizarrely, Shultz is also eager that von Arenberg should be put out of the way, so in Babette he finds he has a useful ally...