L'Assassin est dans l'annuaire (1962)
Directed by Léo Joannon

Film Review

Screenwriter, producer and film director Léo Joannon started his career in 1930 and ended up in 1967 with a film called Les Arnaud starring Bourvil and Belgian-Italian singer Salvatore Adamo.  Between these there was a diverse mix of films, many successful, featuring such luminaries as Danielle Darrieux, Pierre Fresnay, Raimu, Jules Berry, Edwige Feuillère and Annie Girardot.  Joannon was not a major film director but a fair craftsman who made a modest impression on the cinematographic art.   In his oeuvre, we can recall include Le Carrefour des enfants perdus (1944) and L'Homme aux clefs d'or (1956).  We should also remember that in 1951 he directed Atoll K, the farewell feature from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

One of Joannon's more successful productions came on the 2/3/1962, this comedy-thriller entitled L'Assassin est dans l'annuaire, based on the novel Cet imbecile de Rimoldi by Charles Exbrayat.  The plot is about a bank employee who gets caught up in the web of a criminal case.  Once again, Fernandel takes on the role of a naive and silly person with whom it is easy to sympathise.  At the time, the actor was 59 years old, and after three decades in cinema, this was his 129th film, his only collaboration with Joannon, his long-time friend.  At the height of his popularity thanks to his Don Camillo films, the most famous French actor of the moment returns to his civilian clothes in this likeable film, which offers an intriguing plot and some crisp dialogue.

The film's critics were quick to point out its failings, however.  According to them, the humour is not as effective as in other Fernandel films, the plot is hackneyed and the dialogue is a little dated.   Whilst it is true that this film is certainly not a masterpiece, it does provide an amusing divertissement, an amusing mix of comedy, melodrama, whodunit and film noir which allows Fernandel to do what he does best.   Admittedly, the film is less impressive than Julien Duvivier's L'Homme à l'impermeable (1957), which is adapted from another Exbrayat novel and also features Fernandel, perhaps less convincingly in a film noir role. 

L'Assassin est dans l'annuaire was a moderate success on its first release, attracting an audience of 1.6 million, who were no doubt lured by the prospect of seeing Fernandel in the company of such distinguished actors as Marie Déa (the illustrous actress seen in Marcel Carne's Les Visiteurs du soir), Georges Chamarat, Maurice Teynac, Edith Scob, Henri Crémieux, Noël Roquevert, Robert dalban... and Léo Joannon himself.  I've just acquired the DVD release of this until now unavailable production, titled Cet imbecile de... in Belgium, after the original title of Exbrayat's novel.  Definitely a film worth rediscovering.

Film Synopsis

Albert Rinaldi is a simple bank employee whose naivety makes him an object of ridicule amongst his colleagues.  When a woman named Jenny fails to keep an appointment with him, he is certain that once again his colleagues are having a joke at his expense.  One day, his manager asks him to transport a large sum of money, but the van is attacked and the money is stolen.  At first, Albert is accused of the theft, but he is released when the police fail to find any proof.  The next day, a woman named Jenny is murdered.  Convinced that the robbery and the killing are in some way connected, Alberts begins his own inquiry, and proves that he is not as stupid as people seem to think...