La Belle Américaine (1961) - film review

The life of an ordinary factory worker Marcel is completely transformed when he manages to acquire an expensive new American car, a Cadillac convertible, for the price of a second-hand motorcycle.  His apparent initial stroke of good fortune is swiftly followed by a run of bad luck, as he loses his job and then endures the revenge of the car’s previous owner.  Fortunately, his friends are on hand to help him out, seduced by the glamour of his American car…

This light comedy owes as much to the American slapstick comedy of Buster Keaten and Charlie Chaplin as to French burlesque comic farce.  It is essentially no more than one long series of comic capers centred around an expensive American car which brings misfortune on its new owner.  Whilst some of the comedy works quite well, the film is repetitive and rambling without making any series attempt to develop character or develop a coherent narrative.  The film is intended only to entertain and it manages to achieve that to a certain extent, although some of the jokes now look rather like bad clichés.

The film was directed by Robert Dhéry who is probably best known as the director of the comic theatre troupe, Les Branquignols, seen in the 1954 French film, Ah! Les belles bacchantes. Dhéry stars in the film along side a number of his colleagues from Les Branquignols, including Colette Brosset.  The film also features some brilliant and all too brief appearances by Louis de Funès, some years before he acquired the status as the most popular comic actor in France.

© James Travers 2002

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