Pot-Bouille (1957) - film review

Paris, 1865.  Octave Mouret is a young man filled with great ambitions.  He is also a consummate Don Juan and it his talent for seducing members of the opposite sex which he intends using to make a rapid ascent of the social scale.   He finds work as a salesman in an upmarket drapers’ shop, Au Bonheur des Dames, and soon makes a positive impression on his employer, Madame Hédouin.  When the latter repels his amorous advances, Octave resigns and finds work with a rival shop managed by Auguste Vabre, the weak-willed son of his landlord.  When Auguste discovers that Octave is having an affair with his wife, Berthe, he challenges him to a duel...

One of the last highpoints of Julien Duvivier’s outstanding filmmaking career, Pot-Bouille is an effective synthesis of the harsh world of writer Emile Zola and the director’s own peculiar brand of period romanticism.  The film’s unflattering portrayal of the bourgeoisie, as habitual parasites and schemers totally lacking in morality, typifies Duvivier’s deeply cynical view of human nature, which is most evident in his later films.  Even the hero of the film, a womanising social climber superbly portrayed by Gérard Philipe, is a scoundrel who ruthlessly exploits all around him for his own ends.  This would doubtless have rendered the hero unsympathetic were it not for the fact that his victims are even more egregiously self-interested.  Duvivier had previously followed the exploits of Zola’s anti-hero Octave Mouret in Au bonheur des dames (1930).

In addition to its iconic lead actor, the exceptional cast includes Danielle Darrieux, who had previously starred opposite Gérard Philipe in Claude Autant-Lara’s lavish Le Rouge et le noir (1954), and Anouk Aimée, the future star of Claude Lelouch’s Un homme et une femme (1966).  Duvivier’s slick direction and Henri Jeanson’s well-crafted screenplay make this one of French cinema’s more enjoyable Zola adaptations, even if it lacks the bleak tone and character depth of the original novel.  The film was ill-received in some quarters (Duvivier had long gone out of fashion by this stage in his career) but earned favourable reviews from others, notably the critic François Truffaut, who considered it to be a good example of the film d’auteur.

© James Travers 2009

Write a review for this film...

Truffaut deigned to damn this with faint praise when he might have been better occupied aspiring to make a film one tenth as good as Duvivier’s worst.  It is perhaps true that Gérard Philipe was slightly miscast in the lead, lacking the ruthlessness with which Zola had invested the character.  It is equally true that Duvivier had done better stuff, indeed French cinema is punctuated by the works of this consummate filmmaker: Poil de carotte, La Belle équipe, Pépé le Moko, Un carnet de bal, La Fin du jour, etc.  The maestro surrounds Philipe with sterling support in the shape of Danielle Darrieux, Anouk Aimée and the exquisite Jane Marken, who all but walks away with the film.  Not every English filmgoer is conversant with the multi-volume saga by Zola which explores the fortunes of one family (La Bête humaine was another aspect of it) but Duvivier - who had already made a great version of Au bonheur des dames some two decades earlier - ensures that it is not necessary to know the saga in order to enjoy the film.  The next best thing to essential viewing.
Leon Nock (London, England) 

What do you think of this film?