Monsieur Leguignon, lampiste (1952) - film review

Diogène Leguignon is a modest railway worker for whom things seldom tend to go right.  Having been expelled from his home, he and his wife are forced into a rundown house in a less desirable part of town.  Unknown to Leguignon, a band of local children have discovered a stash of treasure and keep it concealed under the floorboards in his house.  When Leguignon attempts to claim ownership of the treasure, he ends up in court and is branded a thief.  When he is released from jail, he persuades his neighbours to use the money gained from the sale of the treasure to build a new housing estate.  But to raise the extra capital to complete the project, Leguignon has to turn to some very unscrupulous bankers...

Based on a celebrated radio play, "Le Tribunal", Monsieur Leguignon, lampiste is a heart-warming mix of comedy and melodrama, presumably intended to help lift the spirits of the working classes in the midst of post-war economic gloom.  The film certainly has some bold left-wing undertones, with solidarity of the working classes, parodying of the French legal system and outright condemnation of self-serving money traders being its main themes.   Yves Deniaud gives a sympathetic performance as an ordinary working class man who manages to defeat bad luck and human malice, through a combination of naïve optimism and generosity of spirit.  The great Louis de Funès appears fleetingly in this film, well over a decade before he established himself as one of France’s leading film comics.

© James Travers 2003

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