Le Chemin des écoliers (1959)

Le Chemin des écoliers is a French war film first released in 1959, directed by Michel Boisrond.  The film is based on a novel by Marcel Aymé and stars Françoise Arnoul, Bourvil, Lino Ventura, Alain Delon and Jean-Claude Brialy.  It has also been released under the title: Way of Youth.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


Paris, 1943.   To accommodate his mistress, Yvette, 17 year-old Antoine Michaud involves himself in black market activities with his friend, Paul Tiercelin.   Whilst his parents believe he is taking a holiday in the country, he takes charge of the delivery of a shipment of champagne.   It is not long before his father discovers the truth...

Le Chemin des écoliers isn’t so much a film as a head-spinning confluence of some of the most impressive acting talent in French cinema in the late 1950s.   Established stars Bourvil and Françoise Arnoul find themselves in the midst of a veritable cavalcade of up-and-coming talent, in the form of Lino Ventura, Alain Delon and Jean-Claude Brialy, actors who would rise to great prominance in the following decade.  For any aficionado of French cinema, the cast list alone would be enough to make the film compulsory viewing, irrespective of its content.

The film itself is a rather pedestrian affair, engaging enough (thanks to its great cast) but somewhat bland and predictable – typical of mainstream French cinema at the time (hence the justification for la nouvelle vague).  The screenplay was adapted from a novel by Marcel Aymé, on whose work the film La Traversée de Paris, a similar (but vastly superior) wartime comedy-drama, also starring Bourvil, was based.

© James Travers 2008

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