Jim la houlette (1935)
Directed by André Berthomieu

Film Review

By the mid 1930s, Fernandel was firmly established as the most popular comic performer in France.  Cinema audiences just couldn't get enough of him.  Averaging four of five films a year over the next two decades, the distinctive horse-faced comedian became as big a screen magnet in France as Chaplin had been in his day, and his versatility as an actor became apparent through the wide variety of films he lent his talents to.  Fernandel's high point as a pure comic performer was between 1935 and 1940, during which time French film comedy was on a roll, untainted by the cynicism that came with the dark years of the 1940s and the corrupting influence of American-style comedy.

Fernandel's better comedies of the 1930s are those that combine the anarchy of an early Marx Brothers film and the madness of a Feydeau farce with the rigorous plotting of a Preston Sturges comedy.  Jim la Houlette is a prime example of this, one of the comic actor's most successful and most enjoyable comedies of this decade.  The film derives from a popular play by Jean Guitton, which had previously been made into a film entitled Jim la Houlette, roi des voleurs in 1926, with Nicolas Rimsky multi-tasking as director, screenwriter and lead actor.  Guitton's work has frequently been adapted for cinema - other adaptations of his plays that Fernandel fans will no doubt be familiar with include Les Rois du sport (1937) and L'Acrobate (1941).

Interestingly - given how successful the film proved to be with critics and audiences - Jim la Houlette was the only time that Fernandel worked with André Berthomieu, an incredibly prolific film director.  With almost seventy screen credits to his name, Berthomieu could hardly be expected to be a consistently good filmmaker, but whilst the bulk of his work languishes in obscurity there are some films that have stood the test of time remarkably well and bear witness to the diversity of his oeuvre - Le Mort en fuite (1936) with Jules Berry and Michel Simon, L'Ange de la nuit (1944) with Jean-Louis Barrault and En légitime défense (1958) with Bernard Blier.  Boasting a script that never runs short of ideas or momentum, and with Fernandel firing on all cylinders, Jim la Houlette rates as one of Berthomieu's most satisfying comedies.

Another thing that marks this out as a superior Fernandel comedy is a strong supporting cast that includes a stunning Mireille Perrey (a perfect choice for the woman over whom the lead actor very nearly loses his head - literally) and that great dame of vaudeville, Marguerite Moreno, a joy to watch in the role that befitted her best: the imperious marquise equipped with a stare that can turn men to stone.  Louis Florencie gets to be the bourgeois bogeyman (with the political left in the ascendant it's hardly surprising that the film should have such an obvious anti-bourgeois, anti-capitalist slant) whilst Jacques Varennes has his work cut out playing the shadowy hoodlum (in the Fantômas mould) who moonshines as a respected, albeit lethally prolix, lawyer.  Despite being a busy actor for most of his career it was only in his later years that Varennes' talents were fully recognised, most notably by Sacha Guitry, who put him to good use in several of his films, including Le Diable boiteux (1948) and La Poison (1951). 

Jim la Houlette has the perfect cast for a supremely well-oiled Fernandel vehicle.  Not only is the comedy giant tirelessly funny, he also gives us a foretaste of his most famous screen creation, a Catholic priest who has a knack of getting himself into trouble, almost twenty years before he made his proper debut in Duvivier's Le Petit monde de Don Camillo (1952).  If you were minded to trump the film up you could attach to it the label of a cany satire, one that takes pleasure in mocking the French legal system, the publishing world, even the insatiable appetite of the hoi polloi for cheap sensationalist thrills.  But that's hardly necessary.  Jim la Houlette is an enjoyable, unpretentious little comedy that allows Fernandel to do what he does best, aided and abetted by a great comedy ensemble.  And if that's not enough, the comedy icon gets to sing one of his best songs, Dites-lui mon amour - a show-stopper if ever there was one.

Film Synopsis

Jacques Moluchet is the author of several best selling romantic novels, but unfortunately he receives no credit for this as his work is published under the name of his unscrupulous employer Philippe Bretonneau, who makes himself rich at his expense.  Jacques derives his inspiration from his intense amorous feelings for Pauline, his employer's young and beautiful wife.  It seems that literary tastes are changing and what the public now wants are lurid thrills, not romance - a trend that is helped by the fact that the newspapers are constantly filled with the latest exploits of the criminal mastermind Jim la Houlette.  Bretonneau accepts a proposition from his publisher to capitalise on the crook's notoriety by staging a hold-up in his château during a soirée hosted by his mother-in-law.  Reluctantly, Jacques agrees to play the part of Jim la Houlette, and nothing seems easier than for him to fire a pistol at the appropriate moment and run off with the precious manuscript of his latest novel.

Unfortunately, the real Jim la Houlette chooses this particular night to raid Bretonneau's château.  In the confusion, Jacques is arrested and ends up in court, to be tried for Jim's numerous criminal exploits.  The trial turns in Jacques' favour when a dossier is presented to the court which casts doubt on his culpability.  His defence lawyer Maître Clisson demands nothing less than a full acquittal.  A 'not guilty' verdict seems certain, until Pauline takes the witness stand and professes her admiration for the accused man. It seems that she completely idolises Jim la Houlette and could not be happier to learn that he was living under her roof.  Unable to dispel his admirer's romantic illusions about him, Jacques has no option but to admit to being the famous criminal.  He might have been less chivalrous if he he had known that he was going to be given the death penalty...