Bibi Fricotin (1951)
Directed by Marcel Blistène

Film Review

French cinema has a long, and mostly unfortunate, history of adapting popular comic books into live action films.  Occasionally, the transposition works a treat - Astérix et Obélix Mission Cléopâtre (2002) being a rare success - but in most cases it fails abysmally and what ends up on screen bares scant resemblance to the work that inspired it.  Bibi Fricotin belongs to this latter category, an enthusiastic but ultimately doomed attempt to bring to life a character of the same name that was created by Louis Forton in 1924 and who has since appeared in over 100 comic books.

In the film, Fricotin is played with customary gusto by Maurice Baquet, a likeable and versatile actor who was as adept at straight drama as he was at knockabout comedy.  His long and varied filmography includes Jean Renoir's Les Bas-fonds (1936) and Louis Daquin's Premier de cordée (1944), as well as some notable comic appearances in such films as Fernand Rivers' Tire au flanc (1949).  Baquet's wiry physique and seemingly boundless energy had already allowed him to play one comic book character successfully, Ribouldingue in Marcel Aboulker's Les Aventures des Pieds-Nickelés (1948) and Le Trésor des Pieds-Nickelés (1949), but, now aged 40, he was probably a little on the mature side to play the teenage Fricotin.

Despite looking a little long in the tooth, Baquet gives great comic value and in some scenes he is irresistibly funny.  The restaurant sequence in which he doubles as a waiter and service station attendant might well have been written for Buster Keaton in his heyday and Baquet makes it just as hilarious.  Another moment of hilarity is Baquet driving Colette Darfeuil (arrayed in a wedding dress) down some French country lanes in a dodgem car.  Before you know it the action has shifted to a fairground - one of many examples where jump-cutting is used for comedic effect. There's no end of quality comic support from the likes of Paul Demange, Alexandre Rignault and Jacques Dufilho, and Yves Robert shows a surprising flair for slapstick, just a few years before he began to make a name for himself as a film director.  Many years before his true talents were recognised and rewarded, Louis de Funès crops up briefly as a swimming pool attendant, a part that might just as well have been given to any passing comic actor.

Had a little more care and attention gone into both the direction and the script Bibi Fricotin could have been something far substantial than the lightweight frivolity it ended up as. Director Marcel Blistène had a fairly undistinguished career and if he is remembered today it is only for his first two films, the Édith Piaf vehicle Étoile sans lumière (1946) and moody noir piece Macadam (1946).  Blistène's idea of comedy seems to rely on infantile slapstick and trick editing (reverse shots repeated ad nauseum), two things that date the film badly and make it more suitable for children than adults.  Maurice Baquet's lively performance prevents Bibi Fricotin from being dull but it hardly does justice to his talents, nor to the comic books on which it is based.

Film Synopsis

Private detective Antoine Gardon is on the trail of a mislaid inheritance when he runs up against the eternal do-gooder Bibi Fricotin.  The quest begins with a mysterious trunk marked with the letter 'Z' which Bibi, assisted by fortune teller Fatma, traces to a conjurer, Tartazan.  The latter intends robbing his niece Catherine of her inheritance, but Bibi sees through his scheme and embarks on his own treasure hunt, with Gardon equally determined to find the lost fortune before him...