L'Habit vert (1937)
Directed by Roger Richebé

Film Review

There is probably no other institution in France that deserves to sent up more than the Académie française, a self-selecting body of crusty old pendants and traditionalists who see themselves as the defenders of the French language but who, in reality, have as much power as a rundown 12 volt battery.  One of the perks of being an Académien is having to wear a fetching green outfit at the academy's formal ceremonies, the imaginatively named 'habit vert'.  Not coincidentally, this happens to be the title of a popular stage play written by Robert de Flers and Gaston Arman de Caillavet satirising the academy, and also a subsequent film adaptation directed with a scurrilous sense of fun by Roger Richebé.  What Cardinal Richelieu, the founder of the esteemed Académie, would have made of this lunatic lampoonery is anyone's guess.  Richelieu was not famous for his sense of humour.

As a director, Richebé was adept in a surprising range of genres but comedy seemed to be a particular forte of his, evidenced by his monarchist bashing satire Monseigneur (1949) and late Noël-Noël vehicle La Fugue de monsieur Perle (1952).  L'Habit vert is easily the best of Richebé's comedies, and not only because of the malicious glee it exhibits in ridiculing one of France's most irrelevant institutions.  It is also a deliciously astute social satire, and in mocking the aristocracy and all those who aspire to be their social equals (including politicians and artists obsessed with their social standing) it still has a profound resonance.  If the film were to remade today it would still be highly topical.

L'Habit vert is a film that is effortlessly funny, a welcome change from the dreary farces and star-led comedies that tended to dominate mainstream French cinema in this era.  Louis Verneuil's dialogue sparkles with wit and malice, particularly when it comes from the mouths of such a distinguished ensemble of comedy actors and borderline eccentrics.  In André Lefaur's Duke of Maulévrier, we have the perfect personification of the Académie française - a dilapidated aristocrat who shows his profound devotion to the French language by marrying a frivolous Rumanian socialite.  The vivacious, man-eating Elvire Popesco is of course the last person we'd expect to see married to a member of the French Academy, so her presence in this exalted position makes Lefaur (and by inference the office he holds) appear even more ridiculous - such a thing could never happen in real life, surely?

Putting Jules Berry in the same film as Elvire Popesco is about as sane as throwing a dozen ignited sticks of dynamite into a burning can of petrol, but somehow Richebé gets away with this supreme act of folly and we end up with a lively fireworks display rather than a raging conflagration.  Clearly there was no shortage of ham in the 1930s, judging by how much of the stuff Berry and Popesco manage to fling at the camera lens in the course of this film.  Never the most subtle of actors, Berry was outrageous whenever he was allowed to get his teeth into a meaty comedy role, and here he is so over the top that you wonder how he managed to avoid ending up in orbit around the planet Neptune.  Watching Berry and Popesco knock the comedy stuffing out of each other beats sumo wrestling any day.

Meg Lemonnier and Victor Boucher bring a touch of class (and some badly needed sobriety) to the proceedings, and Pierre Larquey's presence as an Académicien who is more dust than flesh and blood is very welcome, the icing on a decidedly rich and fruity gâteau.   We can take it as read that Roger Richebé was never admitted to the hallowed ranks of the Académie française, although he did the French nation an immense service by showing what a pointless and preposterous institution this club for the pathologically self-important is.  It's a film that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'kicking the habit'.

Film Synopsis

The Duke of Maulévrier belongs to one of the oldest families in France, so it is right and proper that he should be a member of the Académie française, the noblest of France's institutions.  His wife, the Duchess, is a free-spirited Rumanian who has a tendency to welcome guests at the Duke's ancestral home with more enthusiasm than is becoming to a personage of her status - especially so in the case of the social climbing pianist Parmeline.  It is through the latter that the Duchess meets Count Hubert de Latour-Latour, a man who is as proud of his noble ancestry as the Duke.  The Count cannot help falling for the exotic charms of the Duchess and when the two are found in an uncompromising position by the Duke some quick thinking is required to avoid a scandal.  The Duchess saves her face and her honour by explaining that the Count was merely entreating her to ask her husband to find him a position in the Institut de France.  As it so happens, there is a vacancy at the Académie française and the Duke sees that the Count, a man who can trace his ancestors back several hundred years, would be the ideal candidate.  The election proves to be a formality and in due course Count Hubert is elected to France's most revered institution...