Coiffeur pour dames is a French film comedy first released in 1952, directed by Jean Boyer.  The film stars Fernandel, Renée Devillers, Arlette Poirier, Georges Chamarat and Françoise Soulié.  It has also been released under the title: An Artist with Ladies.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Marius, a Provençal sheep-shearer, dreams of nothing but becoming a ladies’ hairdresser and is ready to do anything to fulfil this ambition.  Thanks to his good fortune and innate charm, he manages to open his first hair-dressing salon in Paris and, now known as Mario, he is soon the most popular coiffeur in the area.  Yet, still he dreams of climbing higher.  His wish comes true when a bourgeois young woman, Edmonde, summons him to her apartment to re-style her hair...

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 – with hilarious consequences.

In the 1940s and 1950s, director Jean Boyer was responsible for many popular and well-crafted comic farces, of which Coiffeur pour dames is a fine example.   Not only is the film well scripted (with many well-realised comic situations and some excruciatingly funny one-liners), but it includes some pleasing performances and makes an entertaining satire on the ungraceful art of social climbing.

© James Travers 2002

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