Monsieur Hector (1940) - film review

The vicomte de Saint-Amand, a skiing champion, sends his valet Hector ahead of him to prepare his apartment in Nice.  Whilst his master is away, Hector dresses up in one of the vicomte’s suits and meets and falls in love with Suzanne, a washroom attendant who has herself borrowed the fur coat of one of her clients.  When the vicomte de Saint-Amand returns, he asks Hector if they can change places – he becoming the valet and Hector becoming the vicomte – so that he can escape the unwelcome attentions of the Maroussia de Dragomir.  When the Maroussia arrives, she is not put off – she redirects her marital ambitions towards Hector, thinking he is the real vicomte.  Meanwhile, the real vicomte has fallen in love with Jacqueline, thinking her to be a humble chambermaid when she is in fact the daughter of an important dignitary.  The latter, shocked that her daughter wishes to marry a valet, visits the vicomte’s apartment and is unimpressed by what he finds, mistaking Hector for the man his daughter loves.  Trapped in a web of deceit and subterfuge, Hector’s problems have only just begun...

In this entertaining farce, France’s comic hero Fernandel gets himself enmeshed in a seemingly endless and inescapable series of cases of mistaken identity.  Despite the complexity of the plot (you need to be pretty alert to follow all of it), the film has a genuine charm, epitomising the French comic farce of the late 1930s.

Much of the film’s content would be deemed politically incorrect by today’s standards - for example, Fernandel blacking himself up (hence the film’s working title Le Nègre du Négresco), and the film’s resolution, which suggests that lower and upper classes are best kept apart.  Yet, however dated the content may be, the film’s timeless comic appeal is more than apparent.  That the film is still hilariously funny is testament to the comic genius of those who made and starred in it, particularly its incomparable star, the legendary Fernandel.

© James Travers 2001

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