Monsieur Leguignon, lampiste (1952)

Monsieur Leguignon, lampiste is a French film comedy-drama first released in 1952, directed by Maurice Labro.  The film stars Yves Deniaud, Christian Argentin, Roland Armontel, Georges Baconnet and Christiane Barry.  It has also been released under the title: Mr. Leguignon Lampiste.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


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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