Clochemerle (1948)
Directed by Pierre Chenal

Film Review

Gabriel Chevallier's satirical novel Clochemerle was such an instant hit when it was first published in 1934 that it's a wonder it took a decade and a half before it made it to the big screen, with Chevallier naturally lending his services as screenwriter.  Pierre Chenal was not the obvious candidate to direct the film, given that his forte seemed to be grimly atmospheric films noirs such as Le Dernier tournant (1939) and La Foire aux chimères (1946).  Way back at the start of his directing career, Chenal had helmed one notable comedy, Le Martyre de l'obèse (1932), a morbid satire on society's attitude towards the obese, but for the bulk of his career crime was the genre for which he had a particular aptitude.

Chenal's Clochemerle is a somewhat blundering, hit-and-miss farce that scarcely does justice to the novel on which it is based. It is occasionally funny (the inauguration of the troublesome public urinal being the film's bawdiest high point) but it hardly rates as a classic.  A lacklustre script and a visible lack of budget no doubt go some way to explain Chenal's barely concealed antipathy for the film.  The skilful mise-en-scène that brings such visual power to the director's far superior films noirs is conspicuous by its absence and a number of scenes in the film scarcely appear to have been directed at all.

Clochemerle is at least partly redeemed by its ensemble of esteemed character actors (Saturnin Fabre, Jean Brochard, Paul Demange and Jane Marken make an impressive roll-call) but even these deserve to be taken to task for their exaggerated, grotesque caricaturing of French provincial types.  The laziness that Chenal shows in his direction is sorely magnified by the crude over-ebullience that mars virtually all of the performances. Presumably it was the excessively tight purse strings that account for why so few of the exteriors were filmed in real locations.  Most are badly mocked up in the studio, with the result that the film has the same airless, stagy feel of an early 1950s television drama, with the camera rarely allowed to move so much as a nanometre through fear that it might stray beyond the narrow confines of the unconvincing studio set.

A depressing quality of cheapness and complacency clings to Clochemerle, and the unsubtle comicbook humour soon becomes wearisome, despite the pedigree of the cast and the lively acting.  The inspired touch that Pierre Chenal had brought to his previous films seems to have deserted him on this occasion, but it would return, refreshed and reinvigorated, in his subsequent gutsy crime dramas Rafles sur la ville (1958) and La Bête à l'affût (1959).  Improbably, the next screen adaptation of Clochemerle would be a BBC television serial which first aired in 1972 and was scripted by Steptoe and Son writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.  Unlike Chenal's plodding version, this was a pukka adaptation that Gabriel Chevallier would have been proud of.

Film Synopsis

On the face of it Clochemerle-en-Beaujolais would seem to be the idyllic French village, but this apparent haven of tranquillity harbours a divided community.  The village is divided into two camps which each refuses to have anything to do with the other.  In one camp there is the mayor Barthélemy Piéchut, schoolmaster Tafardel and an alcoholic shopkeeper.  In the other there are Justine Putet, the victim of gossipmongers everywhere, and the prim Baronness Courtabiche, a model of virtue and respectability.  So far, the two halves of the village have managed to co-exist without going to war with one another, but that changes when the mayor announces his decision to construct a gentleman's urinal next to the village church.  A former minister is invited to inaugurate this most essential of public amenities.  As disorder breaks out, the mayor is sent into a panic and the army is summoned in a desperate attempt to restore order to a troubled community.  This only makes the situation worse...