Film Review
In late November 1963, whilst British cinema audiences were delighting
in the second round of screen exploits of agent 007 (
From Russia with Love), their
French counterparts were being treated to an altogether different kind
of thriller, one which (at first glance) appears to have fallen through
a time warp from the 1950s.
Les Tontons flingueurs has no exciting car chases, no exotic
locations, no scantily dressed females and no bronzed sardonic hero
- it is not even in colour! What it does have, however, is
an ensemble of terrific actors, a totally unhinged plot and reams of
self-deprecating dialogue that crackles like a gigantic bank of Geiger
counters next to a radioactive pile. Given that it would take the
Bond movies another decade before they descended to this level of
self-conscious, self-inflicted Mickey-taking, you could say that
Les Tontons flingueurs was ahead of
its time.
The thriller-parody was by no means a new phenomenon. They were
making films like this in Hollywood way back in the 1930s, sending up
the first wave of gangster movies for all they were worth. The
film's director, Georges Lautner, had already found success with the
genre with a series of films featuring the exploits of a Bond
forerunner, special agent Théobald Dromard, a.k.a. Le Monocle,
beginning with
Le Monocle noir (1961).
Throughout much of the 60s and 70s, Lautner carved a very successful
niche for himself by directing parodies of various forms of thriller,
from Bond-style spy spoofs to gangster parodies. The best of
these is unquestionably
Les Tontons
flingueurs, which manages to be both a stylish pastiche of film
noir thrillers of the past and an irresistibly funny comedy.
It may be hard to believe but
Les
Tontons flingueurs was orginally conceived as a serious gangster
film, based on a novel in a series of pulp fiction thrillers by Albert
Simonin. An earlier novel in the series had already been adapted,
by Jacques Becker, as
Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), one
of the landmark films noirs of French cinema. Simonin's subseqent
novel
Grisbi or not Grisbi
was to have been a kind of sequel to Becker's film, with Jean Gabin
reprising the central role of ageing gangster Max Le Menteur.
Conscious that the traditional gangster movie had had its day, and
mindful of the success of his earlier thriller parodies, George Lautner
was easily persuaded to take the comedic route, assisted by a talented
dialogist, Michel Audiard. This was Lautner's first collaboration
with Audiard and the beginning of a partnership that would last 22
years, right up until the writer's death in 1985, their final work
together being
La Cage aux folles 3 - 'Elles' se marient
(1985).
By the early 1960s, Jean Gabin had begun to refashion his screen persona to
become the patriarch or Godfather of French cinema. He would have
been ideal for the lead role in
Les
Tontons flingueurs, but unfortunately he refused to accept the
part unless Lautner gave in to a series of unreasonable demands, which
included the choice of technicians. With Gabin out of the frame,
Lautner naturally considered replacing him with Paul Meurisse, who had
given such value in the
Monocle
films. Unfortunately, Meurisse had health problems at the time
and so Lautner approached an actor who, whilst having no experience
with comedy, had come to be identified with tough gangster roles, Lino
Ventura. Convinced that he had no talent whatsoever as a
comedic performer, Ventura had reservations about taking on the role of
Fernand Naudin, but it proved to be one of the most important of his
career. Ventura may not have been a natural comedian but by
playing the straight man in a totally unhinged universe inhabited by
pratfalling loons and buffoons he is uproariously funny, and many a
French comedy owes its classic status to his sobering unflappable presence.
With Lino Ventura cast as the straight man, all that the film needed
was an ensemble of comedic actors to hurl the gag-laden frisbees in his
direction. Bernard Blier was to be the perfect foil for Ventura,
another acting heavyweight, but one with a natural penchant for
downbeat comedy. Here Blier's comedy muscle is enhanced by
Lautner's decision to partner him with another popular funny man, Jean
Lefebvre, who is best remembered today for his part in the
Gendarme films, suffering under
Louis de Funès in various madcap situations. The brilliant
Blier-Lefebvre double act is balanced by Ventura's pairing with another
comedy giant, Francis Blanche, who is probably the funniest thing about
this film (or indeed any film). Robert Dalban (a familiar
habitué of gangster films, straight and parodied) lends his
support as a pointlessly bilingual valet and Claude Rich has no end of
fun playing an avant-garde musician. The German actress
Sabine Sinjen and Italian Venantino Venantini were imposed on Lautner
by the film's German and Italian co-producers, both adding a touch of
60s-style glamour to the proceedings. (Gaumont, the film's French
distributor, had doubts that the film would be a success, and so its
producer Alain Poiré was coerced into seeking backing from
German and Italian distributors, hence the Euro-pudding cast.)
When it was first released, on 27th November 1963,
Les Tontons flingueurs met with a
barrage of flak from the critics, who were generally falling over
themselves to lambaste a film that was perceived as hopelessly outdated
and plumbing the depths of popular entertainment. A film that
found humour in armed violence, with people being shot dead for laughs,
in the same week that President Kennedy was assassinated was unlikely
to go down well with anyone of a critical disposition. And let us
not forget that this was the height of the French New Wave, a time of
change and modernity. Lautner's film appeared to be mired in the
mediocrity of the mid-1950s - not
cinéma
d'aujourd'hui but
cinéma
de papa. Who would pay to watch a film that was a silly
send-up of an old-fashioned gangster flick? As it turned out (and
not for the first time) the critics had it wrong. 3.3 million
cinemagoers flocked to watch
Les
Tontons flingueurs and it wasn't many years before the film was
recognised as a classic of its kind, a film that inspired countless
imitations but was seldom (if ever) improved upon. Today, it is
both a popular classic and a cult favourite, one of the most often
repeated films on French television (seventeen times so far, and still
counting). Lautner immediately followed it with another thriller
parody,
Les Barbouzes (1964), and then
another,
Ne nous fâchons pas
(1966), both popular entries in his impressive filmography.
So just what is it about
Les Tontons
flingueurs that makes it such an enduring success? Can it
be the exceptional cast line-up, which includes some of the best-loved
actors in French cinema? Can it be Maurice Fellous's beautifully
noirish cinematography, effectively complemented by Michel Magne's
score (which consists of the same motif being orchestrated in umpteen
different ways)? Or is it Lautner's imaginative direction, which
derives the maximum impact from the visual gags, which become more
outlandish as the film progresses? Whilst all of the above
doubtless play a part in the film's unfading popularity, the real
secret of the film's success is Michel Audiard's dialogue which employs
its own humorous argot, a twisted variant on that which Albert Simonin
invented for his novel. There are lines in the film that are
known to virtually every man, woman and stray dog in France, including:
"Les cons, ça ose tout. C'est même à
ça qu'on les reconnaît" and "C'est curieux chez les marins
ce besoin de faire des phrases!" Hearing Audiard's classic
dialogue is like listening to a favourite piece of music - after a
while, it becomes a kind of prozac-substitute, a pick-me-up that never
fails to do its job. And that, in essence, is the definition of a
classic: a cheap but effective alternative to prescribed medicine.
© James Travers 2013
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Next Georges Lautner film:
Des pissenlits par la racine (1964)