Le Tatoué (1968) - film review

Félicien Mézeray, a wealthy art dealer, discovers a priceless Modigliani, tattooed on the back of an ageing legionnaire, Legrain.  The latter agrees to sell the tattoo if Mézeray agrees to renovate his country house.  The house turns out to be a ruined sixteenth century chateau, but so keen is he to acquire the tattoo that Mézeray agrees to Legrain’s terms.  The legionnaire then begins to suspect that the art dealer may be more ruthless than he appears...

Although undoubtedly great family entertainment, Le Tatoué is really nothing more than a clumsy vehicle to unite Louis de Funès with Jean Gabin, following a dubious fashion in French cinema at the time to pair off stars of the highest echelon.

De Funès had by the time this film was made become the most popular comic actor in France, adored by the public and film-makers alike.  He excelled in burlesque comedies like Le Tatoué , having the capacity to inject tremendous comic energy into the most risible and lacklustre of scenarios.  By contrast, Jean Gabin’s career was very much on the wane.  Having been arguably the greatest actor in French cinema in the 1930s and 1950s, Gabin ended his career in a serious of stilted roles which did not show the actor at his best.  These include appearances in a number of ill-conceived comedies, of which Le Tatoué is a good example.

Le Tatoué shows us Louis De Funès on fine form, almost bursting off the screen with his enthusiasm and good humour.   Jean Gabin is the complete oppopsite, probably at his most withdrawn and non-committal, although, oddly, this seems to work quite well.  It is not difficult to detect a certain luke-warmness in the on-screen rapport between the two actors.  It transpires that part of the reason for this was the poor working relationship between the two actors, who failed to see eye to eye on virtually anything.  It is reported that they hardly spoke to each other once off the set and that Gabin was easily unsettled by de Funès’s never-ceasing stream of improvisations.

In spite of all this, miraculously, the film still has great entertainment value – due almost entirely to de Funès’ unique brand of comedy and also Georges Garvarentz’s perky music.  Any attempt to rationalise the plot or to analyse the relationship between the two lead characters is doomed to failure.  The best thing is to sit back and just enjoy the film for what it is – an effervescent camp French comedy from the colourful 1960s.

© James Travers 2001

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