Le Boulanger de Valorgue (1953) - film review

Just before he departs for his military service in Algeria, the son of a village baker has a clandestine affair with the daughter of the grocery shop.  Ten months later, the daughter, Françoise, returns to the village after a stay in Italy, with a newborn baby.  Outraged, Françoise’s mother takes the baby and thrusts it into the face of the baker, Félicien, insisting that his son is the father.  Félicien furiously denies this, convinced that no son of his could commit such a folly.  Within a few days, the peace of the little village is shattered as its inhabitants turn on each other, siding either with the baker or the grocer.  When the baker refuses to deliver bread to his opponents, the grocer’s supporters decide to blockade his supply of flour....

Of the nine films that Fernandel made with director Henri Verneuil, Le Boulanger de Valorgue is arguably the best made and the most satisfying.  There are shades of Marcel Pagnol in the film’s whimsical yet strikingly naturalistic depiction of village life in the South of France.  The plot and its setting remind us of Pagnol’s Angèle (1934), the film that gave Fernandel one of his first significant dramatic roles.  Yet the tone is lighter, the situations more overtly comical.  Whilst the film does not downplay the social stigma associated with childbirth outside wedlock, it takes a more light-hearted approach, allowing Fernandel to play to his strengths as a comic performer.  

Although Henri Verneuil is perhaps best remembered for his slick policiers of ’60s and ’70s, notably Le Clan des Siciliens (1969) and Peur sur la ville (1975), he was a remarkably versatile director, as capable of delivering a boisterous comedy such as Les Lions sont lâchés (1961) as a poignant melodrama like Des gens sans importance (1955).  Le Boulanger de Valorgue combines social realism and comedy to great effect and is easily one of Verneuil’s most engaging films.  Photographed in a way that vividly captures the stark beauty of the rural location and populated with believable, well-drawn characters rather than the familiar stereotypes, this film has a realist edge and auteur sensibility that you would not expect to find in a mainstream French comedy of this era.

Hernri Verneuil was one of a handful of directors who was able to get the best out of Fernandel, as this and their later collaboration La Vache et le prisonnier (1959) amply demonstrate.   In a part that fits him like a well-worn glove, the great comic actor has no need to indulge in the excesses for which he is known but instead plays the baker of Valorgue as a real character, with real feelings and real failings.  Fernandel  is hilarious in the sequence when his character goes off to Italy and finds he can only communicate with the locals through hand gestures, but equally he gives a heartrending turn when his character opens his heart to his future daughter-in-law and shows an unexpected compassionate side to his nature.  Rarely is a great comedian also a great actor, but this film leaves us in little doubt that Fernandel was a formidable acting talent, a performer who could make you cry and laugh with extraordinary ease, often in the same scene.

© James Travers 2010

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