Le Voyage à Biarritz (1963) - film review

For twenty years, station master Guillaume Dodut has dreamt of taking a holiday with his wife and son in the seaside town of Biarritz.  For twenty years, he has had to put off the holiday to pay for his son’s education.  When, aged 24, his son Charles passes his engineering exams in England, Guillaume can at last fulfil his dream and makes preparations for the long-awaited holiday.   When he wins a one-day trip to London, Guillaume is delighted because he will be able to meet his son before returning home to France.  However, Charles is none too keen to be seen with his father and so manages to avoid meeting him.  Charles is ashamed of his origins and fears that neither his employer nor his new girlfriend, Marjorie, will be impressed to learn that he is the son of a railway employee...

This engaging comedy appears to have been tailor-made for Fernandel, allowing the popular comic actor to turn in one of his most sympathetic and convincing performances.  It is one of a handful of films featuring the horse-faced comedian which has stood the test of time, thanks to a decent script and some good production values.  Fernandel’s co-stars include a young Michel Galabru, who would became famous as Louis de Funès’s long-suffering side-kick in the Gendarmes films of the 1960s and the great stage and film actress Arletty, best known for her part in Marcel Carné’s 1945 film Les Enfants du paradis.  This was to be Arletty’s last film appearance – while she was working on this film she was practically blind, following an accident earlier in the year, an accident which tragically curtailed a remarkable acting career.

Le Voyage à Biarritz was the third - and arguably the best – of six films that Fernandel made under the direction of Gilles Grangier between 1946 and 1966.  The film is memorable for many reasons – a poignant story about the relationship between a father and his son, Fernandel’s innate talent for switching between farce and pathos at the drop of a hat (changing the mood of the film greatly as he does so), and some great comic moments.   A very young Anna Massey - probably the last person you would expect to find in a Fernandel film – makes a fleeting appearance as a quintessentially English girl.  It was her third film role, and came immediately after her part in Michael Powell’s controversial Peeping Tom (1960).

© James Travers 2007

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