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Tovaritch
1935 Comedy
 Review
The first of three films to be directed by the successful French
playwright Jacques Deval is this deft adaptation of his popular stage
play Tovaritch, first
performed in 1933 with Elvire Popesco in the leading female role.
Deval is today best known for his subsequent film Club
de femme (1936), a spirited satire on the sexual mores of
the time which, with its references to lesbianism, prostitution and
frenzied cross-dressing, was quite shocking for its time. Tovaritch is a far less controversial piece than Club de femme, a witty and inoffensive farce that still manages to extort the occasional laugh, thanks mainly to the efforts of its principals André Lefaur and Irén Zilahy. The most memorable scenes are those in which the feisty and ever-so slightly doolally Zilahy crosses swords with Pierre Renoir, the latter appearing in a rare comedic role as a Soviet official who looks like he may have shared both a womb and a barber with Vladimir Lenin. Two years later, Anatole Litvak directed the better known American version of Deval’s play, which starred Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer and Basil Rathbone. © filmsdefrance.com 2010 Write a review for this film...User Comments
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Director:
Jacques Deval, Germain Fried, Jean Tarride, Victor Trivas
Starring: André Alerme, Junie Astor, Camille Bert, Ariane Borg, Gabrielle Calvi Synopsis
Russia, 1917. Not long after the state wedding of General
Ouratieff to Tsar Nicolas II’s niece Tatiana, the country is caught up
in a bloody revolution. With the Tsar and his family facing
execution at the hands of the Bolsheviks, Ouratieff and his wife flee
the country. Fifteen years later, they are living a meagre
existence in a cheap one room apartment in Paris. The general has
in his possession four billion francs, but this is to be used to
restore the Tsar in his beloved Russia and he will not touch a centime
for his own use. Unable to make ends meet, Ouratieff and Tatiana
have no choice but to find work, not an easy prospect in a country
where there is mass unemployment. By their good fortune, they
find a post as valet and housekeeper to a wealthy businessman,
Monsieur Arbeziah. The general and his wife are surprised when,
one evening, Arbeziah invites a Soviet official to his apartment to
discuss the sale of oil concessions in his country...
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© filmsdefrance.com 2009