L’Étrange désir de Monsieur Bard (1953) - film review

When he learns that he has only a short time left to live, Auguste Bard, a solitary bachelor in his fifties, feels a desperate need to be loved.  Having been forced to retire from his job as a coach driver for a casino, he throws away his pension on the gambling tables but, to his surprise, he ends up winning a fortune.  He decides to use the money to pay for a woman to give him a child whom he can cherish for what little remains of his life.  Bard manages to find a young woman who will agree to his strange request, a dancer named Donata.  His money-grabbing family are unimpressed and are determined to have him certified as a madman so that they can take possession of his fortune...

This whimsical moral tale, dressed up as a French situation comedy, allows actor Michel Simon to shine in one of his most poignant film creations.  Although the film, from Hungarian director Géza von Radványi, does not have the stature of a Renoir, a Carné or a Vigo (just three of the monumental directors to have worked with Simon), it is still an engaging work, with some moments of tenderness and some great comedy.  Simon’s presence alone gives the film the tone of a serious classic work, although this is undermined somewhat by some bizarre excesses (for example, the drawn-out pre-credit sequence).

The film’s strange mix of comedy and drama makes it an unusual work, quite different from most French comic films of this period – a modern fable with a distinctly humanist edge to it.  One of the pleasures of this the film are the contributions from the supporting cast, which include Paul Frankeur as a billiard-playing priest and an astonishingly young-looking Louis de Funès as a clownish authoritarian rogue, the character that French cinema audiences would one day come to adore – in their millions.

© James Travers 2003

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