Rendez-vous aux Champs-Élysées (1937)
Directed by Jacques Houssin

Film Review

No one would dispute that the election of the Popular Front government in May 1936 was a seismic moment in France's political history.  But the sheer mind-blowing enormity of this momentous event surely cannot be appreciated until you have seen Jules Berry joining the ranks of the proletariat, exchanging his immaculate lounge suit for the garb of a municipal dustman and getting all pally with Pierre Larquey.  Rendez-vous Champs-Élysées was the film in which this highly improbable event took place, and it has to be said that Berry still manages to look ultra-dapper even when clad in the cheaply made togs of the lower orders.

Taking as his source a short story by Frank Arnold, director Jacques Houssin delivers one of his zaniest comedies - not quite as slick as his subsequent humorous offerings, but entertaining all the same.  Jules Berry, whilst superb as a dramatic actor, also had a penchant for farce, and Rendez-vous Champs-Élysées allows him to indulge his comic verve without restraint.  What plot there is is pretty nonsensical, so the film consists mostly of a succession of sketches that lampoon just about every stratum of French society, from the lower working class (hilariously incarnated by Pierre Larquey) to the playboy set (represented by Berry), without overlooking the etiquette-obsessives known as the bourgeoisie.

The script appears to have been written in a hurry, as the film is as lacking in cohesion as it is in sense and comic restraint.  Some of the comic detours lead nowhere and struggle to get even a moderate laugh - most notably the pointless overlong scene in which Berry allows his reactions to be tested so that he can get a job driving a train on the Paris underground.  The consequences of Berry driving a train on the Paris underground are much funnier, and if this horror show doesn't put you off ever venturing onto the Metro again nothing will.  The film's most memorable scenes are those in which Berry and Larquey appear together - two of the best-loved actors of the decade sparring off one another so well that you wonder why they didn't go on to form a double act.  This remarkable duo also appeared together in Maurice Gleize's Une poule sur un mur (1936), Roger Richebé's L'Habit vert (1937) and Maurice Gleize's Clodoche (1938).

It's a far cry from Jean Renoir's Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936), in which Jules Berry was cast as an indomitable bulwark of Western capitalism, giving us one of French cinema's greatest villains.  In Rendez-vous Champs-Élysées, Berry seems to have such a good time mucking in with the lower orders that you'd think he was a card-carrying Communist who liked nothing better than whistling The Internationale on his way to the Tour d'Argent.  What a happy time that must have been, that halcyon time of the Front Populaire, when all of France's social classes were united under a banner of fraternal good will.  Of course, it couldn't last...

Film Synopsis

Maxime Germont is a Parisian playboy whose extravagant lifestyle comes to an abrupt end when the bailiffs come knocking on his door one day.  Way behind with his rental payments, he faces being evicted from his luxury apartment, a fate he can avoid if he were registered as unemployed.  Unfortunately, to be legally unemployed Maxime must have had a job in the first place, so for the first time in his life he sets his mind to the task of finding some paid work.  As he mulls over this, a curious individual suddenly shows up and coerces him into handing over ten thousand francs as an investment in an invention that could make him a fortune.  Knowing he has just been conned, Maxime then squanders the last of his fortune by paying for a stranger's lunch at a classy restaurant, the stranger in question being an attractive young woman named Liliane.

Anxious not to be mistaken for a loafer who has nothing better to do than settle other people's restaurant bills, Maxime assures Liliane he is in full time employment.  This provides our hero with the incentive he needs to carry through his scheme and get a job - as the driver of a municipal dustcart.  This is how Maxime gets his firsthand exposure to the proletariat class, in the form of amiable dustman Totor.  Though they come from opposite ends of the social spectrum, the two men become the closest of friends and Maxime gladly accepts Totor's invitation to dinner at his slum dwelling, in the company of the latter's rotund wife.  When he shows up late for work one morning, dressed in his usual formal attire, Maxime is pounced on by an over-diligent gendarme and a fierce scrap ensues.  Having lost one job, the ex-playboy soon finds another, as a driver on the Paris Metro.  Another mishap ensues and he is demoted to ticket collector.

Seeing Maxime with his rich playboy friends, Liliane sees at once that she has been duped and promptly spurns him before hooking herself another playmate.  With the help of his trusty Totor (now employed as a waiter in a post restaurant), Maxime manages to patch things up with Liliane.  He finally has his chance to settle all of his debts by betting everything he has earned on the horses.  Alas, Totor puts the money on the wrong horse and he wins nothing!  Just when all appears lost, the mysterious inventor who accosted Maxime at the start of his recent adventures shows up and hands him a cheque for 300 thousand francs, with the promise of more to come.  It seems that his invention has been a massive success and Maxime is now a rich man!