Film Review
By moving from a contemporary to a period setting, Bourvil was able,
progressively, to break away from the naive goon-type role in which he
started his film career and migrate towards more complex character
portrayals. After two lively swashbucklers -
Les Trois Mousquetaires (1953)
and
Cadet Rousselle (1954) -
Bourvil finds himself mixed up in the Napoleonic wars, in a film that,
coincidentally, was released just a few months after Sacha Guitry's
epic
Napoléon
(1955). Filmed in black and white and set mostly in one
location,
Les Hussards looks
positively modest compared with Guitry's colourful blockbuster but it
makes a fairly successful stage-to-screen transposition of
Pierre-Aristide Bréal's play of the same title, allowing Bourvil
to put his comedic talents to good use whilst taking on a more dramatic
role than usual.
Here Bourvil is effectively partnered with another icon of French
cinema, Bernard Blier. Whilst the double act doesn't have the
magical quality that Bourvil's later pairing with Louis de Funès
would have, in
Le Corniaud (1965) and
La Grande vadrouille (1966),
there's some amusement to be had in watching two very different comic
performers spar off one another, in a film in which the comedy is
downplayed and surfaces sporadically. À propos, de
Funès also crops in the film, hilarious, as ever, as a cowardly
priest. The film's other star, Georges Wilson, also gives great
entertainment value as a self-important officer who becomes ever more
ludicrous as he attempts to impose his idea of authority.
Prominent in the Italian side of the cast is Virna Lisi, who is now
probably best known for playing a thoroughly wicked Catherine de Medici
in Patrice Chéreau's
La Reine Margot (1994).
After this amiable historical romp (a far from unsubtle allusion to
France's recent period of Occupation), Alex Joffé would work
with Bourvil on five more films, including
Fortunat
(1969) and
Le Tracassin (1961).
© James Travers, Willems Henri 2015
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Film Synopsis
Under Bonaparte, the French army begins its campaign in Italy.
Two soldiers, Flicot and Le Gouce, are sent on a reconnaissance
mission, but they manage to lose their horses when they encounter a
pair of Italian lovers. Whilst looking for their horses, the two
soldiers arrives in the village of San Angelo, which is almost deserted
because of the fighting. Meanwhile, the captain who sent our two
heroes on their mission is half-convinced they have deserted and sets
out to look for them. When the captain and his men arrive in San
Angelo, Flicot and Le Gouce fabricate an implausible story in which
they fought a brave battle against the hostile locals. The two
soldiers are fêted as heroes, until their deception is revealed...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.