Un chapeau de paille d’Italie (1928) - film review

The year is 1895.  Fadinard is on the way to his wedding when his horse picks up and eats a straw hat.  The owner of the hat is a married woman who, at the time, is in the embrace of a French officer, Lieutenant Tavernier.  The officer follows Fadinard  to his new home and demands that he finds a substitute hat so that his mistress can return home to her husband without arousing suspicion.  Fearing that Tavernier will wreck his new apartment, Fadinard hastens away to his wedding, using every opportunity he can to find a replacement hat.  When finally he does manage to find the elusive hat, things becomes even more complicated...

René Clair skilful transposition of Labiche’s play from the 1850s to the 1890s provides an outrageously funny satire on bourgeois attitudes.  Although the plot is childishly simple, the film is replete with content, showing the director’s mastery of both visual comedy and film photography.

The period setting (la belle époque) was chosen to emphasise the absurdity of Bourgeois obsession with decorum and honour, epitomised by the straw hat itself.  Only by finding an identical straw hat to the one that was soiled by a dumb beast can a lady’s reputation be salvaged.

Un chapeau de paille d’Italie is notably one of the few silent French films that can accurately be labelled a comic masterpiece.  Even today, when the film’s satirical content is far less potent than it was when it was first released, the film is hilarious and hugely entertaining.   Without any exaggeration, this is simply one of the funniest films of all time.

© James Travers 2000

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