Variétés (1935) - film review

Georges, Jeanne and Pierre form a successful trapeze act, Les Trois Maximes, for a provincial circus.  Impressed by their talents, an impresario books them for a season at a Parisian music hall.  In no time, the trio becomes one of the most popular attractions in the capital, but their success may be short-lived.  Georges is madly in love with Jeanne and intends to marry her.  Jeanne is heart-broken when she hears of this, since Pierre is the man she loves.  Inevitably, Georges and Pierre fall out over Jeanne, but will their rivalry end in public tragedy...?

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Carol Reed saw Variétés around the time it was released and kept the main storyline buried in his subconscious for twenty years before making something remarkably similar in Trapeze (1956).  Both films feature trapeze artists, in each case two men and one woman, which clearly gives scope for our old friend the eternal triangle.  I would argue that Farkas not only got there first but made a better fist of it than Reed, not too hard given that he was working with Jean Gabin who was just about ready to peak.  

This was Gabin’s twentieth film and although he had several notable films under his belt - Zouzou, Maria Chapdelaine, La Bandera, etc.  - it was the string of successes that followed Variétés which would catapult him to Number One at the French box office and make him a name outside France.  These include: La Belle équipe, Pépé le Moko, La Grande illusion, Gueule d’amour, Le Quai des brumes, La Bête humaine, Le Recif de corail, Le Jour se lève and Remorques - nine smasheroos in just six years!  So when Gabin signed up with Nicholas Farkas everything was in place - the presence, the timing, the charisma - so that all Farkas needed to do was to point at him, say Go! and then capture his magic on film.  

For the record, the other two members of the trapeze act (les Trois Maximes) were also major figures in French cinema: Fernand Gravey and Annabella.  The latter had of course played opposite Gabin in La Bandera and would arguably achieve her greatest presence in Hôtel du Nord (1938) though it was too bad that Arletty was in the same movie and left her for dead.

This is a fine film and was deservedly popular at the time.  It would surely find an audience today if the CNC (France’s national film archive) would strike a few prints off the master in its vaults.  It was good enough for Herbert Wilcox to remake it in England the following year as The Three Maxims starring his wife, Anna Neagle, with Leslie Banks and Tulio Carminati, but this is not even worth discussing in the same breath as Variétés.

© Leon Nock (London, England) 2010 

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