Tendre voyou (1966) - film review

When he loses his job as a chauffeur, Tony Maréchal decides to live off the wealthy women who succumb so easily to his seductive charms.  His adventure begins with Muriel, the beautiful young mistress of successful businessman Gabriel Dumonceaux.  Mistaking Tony for Muriel’s cousin, Dumonceaux coaxes him into joining him and his wife Béatrice on a skiing holiday.  Béatrice Dumonceaux cannot resist Tony and the young gigolo soon finds himself at the tender mercies of both Dumonceaux’s mistress and his wife.  He is rescued by the Baroness von Strasshofer, a rich widow with an insatiable appetite for eligible young men.  Tony and his best friend Bob soon find themselves on the baroness’s yacht, in the company of such eminent individuals as the speculator Lord Edouard Swift.  When he is not being mauled by the baroness, Tony gets to know a young heiress, Véronique, who is on her way to Tahiti to recover her father’s inheritance.  Tony decides to help Véronique, not knowing that she is a bigger con artist than he could ever be...

Tendre voyou is typical of the kind of silly lightweight comedy that was made in the 1960s, a star-studded nonsensical romp that looked as though it was scripted during a five minute coffee break and which allowed the lead actor(s) free reign to indulge their worst excesses.  Whilst by no means the worst example of its kind, Tendre voyou is hardly the most sophisticated of French film comedies.  It attracted barely two million spectators in France, a disappointing result given its lavish budget and the fact it featured the most popular French actor of the day, Jean-Paul Belmondo.  (Two years previously, the actor had drawn an audience of nearly five million with L’Homme de Rio).

This was Belmondo’s third and last collaboration with director Jean Becker, following Un nommé La Rocca (1961) and Échappement libre (1964).  By this time, Belmondo had become a major star in France and had an ego to match, something that presented an insuperable challenge for the inexperienced Becker.  Belmondo’s penchant for tomfoolery doesn’t so much spill onto the screen as absolutely floods it, and the film suffers as a result.  Tendre voyou would have been a mediocre comedy without the lead actor’s horrendous grimaces and gesticulations - the plot is a ramshackle mess and Becker directs it with as much verve and inspiration as though it were a life insurance commercial.  Belmondo certainly livens things up but his attempts to emulate Buster Keaton and other comedy giants fall flat on virtually every occasion.  Despite some spirited contributions from the distinguished supporting artistes (both Philippe Noiret and Robert Morley escape with their reputations intact and Geneviève Page gives us at least one decent laugh), Tendre voyou is a tedious run-around that isn’t so much funny as embarrassing, one of Belmondo’s weaker films.

© James Travers 2011

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