Film Review
Les Gangsters du château d'If is a fine example of the wildly
anarchic film comedy that was extraordinarily popular in France in the 1930s
- a fun-packed extravaganza in which a succession of humorous escapades and
musical numbers is barely held together by the most tenuous of plots.
It was the kind of lowbrow entertainment that writer-director René
Pujol specialised in and, aided and abetted by some of the best French comic
performers of the day, rarely did he fail to deliver what audiences wanted
- a welcome dose of silliness to escape from the toil and anxieties of life
in the grimmest of decades.
This particular madcap concoction started out as an operetta (of the same
title) written by Henri Alibert and first performed in 1936, with music supplied
by its author's illustrious father-in-law Vincent Scotto, one of the decade's
most prolific composers for stage and screen. Alibert was among the
leading French chansoniers of the time, affectionately dubbed the 'Méridional
des Méridionaux' on account of his strong associations with the port
of Marseille. Alibert not only adapted his play into this film, he
also took the lead role he had created for himself, having already proven
himself to be a very capable actor in half a dozen films, notably
Au pays
du soleil (1933).
Les Gangsters du château d'If was
Alibert's third collaboration with Pujol, following
Un de la Canebière
(1937) and
Titin des Martigues (1938).
Interestingly, Alibert was the only member of the principal cast in the original
stage play to reprise his role for the film. The part created by Rellys
was taken up by Pierre Larqey, one of the most outstanding and popular French
comic actors of the 1930s and '40s, who excelled in this kind of uproarious
high energy farce. The film has many other notable performers - from
the wonderfully glamorous Betty Stockfeld (a welcome addition to many a French
comedy of this period) to the likeably lugubrious Aimos (fondly remembered
as Tintin in Julien Duvivier's
La
Belle équipe) - but it is Larquey who steals the show as the tourist-fleecing
keeper of the château d'If (famously the island prison of Edmond Dantès
in Dumas's
The Count of Monte Cristo). And it is hard to see
how he could fail to so given that he gets the lion's share of the best jokes
- the sequence in which he 'goes a haunting' with a sheet over his head is
worthy of a Marx Brothers film. Larquey would give another tour-de-force
turn in Pujol's equally entertaining swansong,
Faut ce qu'il faut (1946).
The film's sheer exuberance amply makes up for the lack of any tangible plot,
although you can't help wondering how much better it might have been had
the narrative been slightly better constructed and the characters a little
less cartoonish.
Les Gangsters du château d'If looks like
a film that has been thrown together like a salad, with a colourful collection
of characters who come and go like variety turns in a wacky music hall revue.
Alibert's booby-trapped office (complete with collapsing stairs and chairs
that make offensive noises when you sit on them - Reginald Perrin would have
been quite at home here) allows the repeat gag to be taken to ludicrous extremes,
and the musical numbers provide some welcome relief from the schoolboy comedy
hi-jinks. The film's most inspired touch is the scene in which Germaine
Roger sings a duet with a miniaturised Henri Alibert - it looks like something
out of
The Incredible
Shrinking Man (1957) until you realise that Alibert is supposed to
be his photograph 'come to life'.
© James Travers 2016
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In Marseille, Jean Mariol publishes a magazine that is devoted to hunting,
fishing and tall stories. Jean and his former mistress Odette Paradis,
an aspiring young author, have agreed to go their separate ways, but as a
publicity stunt the two stage a fake kidnapping so that Odette can obtain
a fat cheque from a publisher for her latest novel,
The Daughter of Monte
Cristo. Jean's new sweetheart Nine lives in the famous Château
d'If with her uncle Esprit, who is employed there as a tourist guide and
acts as a go-between for the couple. All is well until Nine attracts
the unwelcome attention of Bimbo, who is mixed up in some nefarious affair
with his thuggish associate Dédé. Matters take another
unexpected turn when Esprit's wife Jérômine falls for an inept
private detective named Papalouche...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.