Taxi, Roulotte et Corrida (1958)
Directed by André Hunebelle

Film Review

With just under a hundred film credits to his name, Louis de Funès came within an ace of overnight stardom when he stole a famous scene from Jean Gabin and Bourvil in Claude Autant-Lara's wartime bash La Traversée de Paris (1956).  Immediately after this film, he was given the lead for the first time in Maurice Régamey's comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe (1957) and his progress to national stardom seemed to be assured when director André Hunebelle then offered him the leading role in Taxi, Roulotte et Corrida, a comedy perfectly suited for his brand of humour.  The film was certainly a hit with the French cinema-going public (it attracted an audience of 2.5 million), but despite this de Funès still had not 'arrived'.  It would be another half a decade before Jean Girault's Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (1964) and Hunebelle's Fantômas (1964) turned de Funès from a minor comic performer into a massive star, arguably the most successful and best loved of all French comic actors.

Taxi, Roulotte et Corrida is a fairly routine comedy that impresses most in its livelier sequences, where Hunebelle's skill as an action movie director (most apparent in his lavish swashbucklers) are employed to good comic effect.  Scripted by Jean Halain, who worked on the bulk of de Funès's film comedies after he had finally attained stardom in the mid-1960s, it involves a typical French family unwittingly becoming mixed up with a gang of comicbook hoodlums intent on recovering a valuable diamond that has somehow found its way into de Funès's suitcase,  The plot - what there is of it - was effectively recycled for a later, far more successful de Funès vehicle, Le Corniaud (1965), and it just about does the job of holding together a succession of madcap comic sequences which end, in an almost surreal flourish, with our beloved Fufu doing some fancy legwork with a group of Flamenco dancers.  The cheapness of the production is all too apparent in the over-excessive - and laughably bad - use of rear projection throughout the film, but de Funès's immense flair for visual comedy (including his trademark grimaces) keeps us distracted from this glaring defect for most of the film.

For such a modest offering, Taxi, Roulotte et Corrida has a surprisingly classy cast, with de Funès's comic hi-jinks ably supported by another incredibly prolific actor, Raymond Bussières.  A founder member of the October Group, a prominent agitprop troupe of the 1930s, Bussières had already been a well-regarded supporting actor in cinema for two and half decades and, by 1958, he was barely halfway through his career.  He had by this time been credited with de Funès on around half a dozen films, including Pierre Montazel's Je n'aime que toi (1949), Guy Lacourt's Mon frangin du Sénégal (1953) and Jean Loubignac's Ah! les belles bacchantes (1954); he would go on to play de Funès's chauffeur in the hit comedy L'Aile ou la Cuisse (1976).  With his thin stony face and rake-like physique, Bussières capitalised on his uncanny likeness to Buster Keaton, and he has rarely come closer to resembling this silent legend than as de Funès's constantly buffeted side-kick in Taxi, Roulotte et Corrida.  The film's most charming aspect is the comic rapport between these two great talents, a classic knockabout double act that prefigures de Funès's subsequent pairing with Bourvil in the following decade.

At the time, Bussières was married to Annette Poivre, another highly successful supporting artiste, so it seems natural that they should appear as man and wife in this riotous family-friendly comedy, along with Poivre's daughter (from an earlier marriage), Sophie Sel.  Playing de Funès's wife (and looking like a hostage being detained by a maniac throughout) is Paulette Dubost, the film's most distinguished performer, with a career stretching back to the dawn of sound cinema and some noteworthy collaborations with the likes of Jean Renoir (La Règle du jeu) and Marcel Carné (Hôtel du Nord).

Playing de Funès's amorously susceptible son in the film is an unbelievably sweet Jacques Dynam - six years later they would becoming memorable sparring partners in Hunebelle's Fantômas films, Dynam's Inspecteur Bertrand and de Funès's Inspecteur Juve ranking as probably the two most inept cops in cinema history.  Future porn star Vera Valmont gets to play the film's most photogenic character (not that there is much competition), a busty blonde gangster moll with no less sex appeal than contemporary stunners Marilyn Monroe and Diana Dors.  It was André Hunebelle who set her promising screen career in motion with Casino de Paris (1957), and she even landed a part in an Éric Rohmer film (Le Signe de Lion) before succumbing to the lure of tawdry erotica in the 1970s.  Revelling in the part of Valmont's hoodlum boss is Max Révol, one of Hunebelle's most utilised actors.  Looking like a chronically over-baked version of Herbert Lom in a live-action Scooby-Doo film, Révol is one of the few cast members not to be eclipsed by de Funès as he throws his all into recovering a missing diamond - with predictably disastrous results.

Although it was actually released in late November 1958, Taxi, Roulotte et Corrida inaugurates a genre of mainstream cinema entertainment in France that would become enormously popular in later decades - the family-orientated holiday movie.  True, it wasn't until L'Hôtel de plage (1978) and Les Bronzés (1978) had notched up enormous audiences in the late 1970s that the genre managed to establish itself, but this early de Funès comedy has all the elements which go to make up an enjoyable romp of this kind - in particular an ordinary-looking family having their longed-for dream holiday turned into a living nightmare by unforeseen events and the sheer damn cussedness of that ghastly month of August.

Film Synopsis

This summer, Maurice Berger feels he has earned his holiday.  A hard-working taxi driver, he will be glad to escape from the hustle and bustle of Paris and enjoy a few weeks' peace and quiet in Spain, in the company of his family.  It is in a happy frame of mind that this stressed-out forty-year-old sets out on his summer expedition, sharing his trusty old car with his wife Germaine and son Jacques, whilst his brother-in-law Léon tags on behind in his caravan, along with his wife and teenage daughter.  All is well until the family arrives at the Spanish border.  Here, subjected to the most intensive search by customs officials, Maurice has a hard job concealing the tobacco he has brought with him.  An attractive blonde named Myriam is standing right beside the taxi driver as they go through the customs rigmarole. Without Maurice noticing, she surreptitiously slips an incredibly expensive stolen diamond into his jacket pocket, knowing that she will be able to recover it once they have passed through customs.

A short while later, Myriam overtakes the Bergers in her car and then pretends to have had a break down.  Of course, Maurice is willing to come to her help, and as he does so the damsel in distress begins rifling his pockets - in vain.  The jewel has apparently disappeared!  Unbeknown to Myriam, Maurice has already emptied his pockets because they were stuffed with the tobacco he was smuggling through customs. At this present moment, the diamond is buried in Maurice's tobacco jar - but no one knows this!  Myriam is in fact working for a gang of seasoned smugglers led by the implacable boss Fred - they are determined to get their hands on the precious jewel and will let nothing stand in their way.

The hoodlums' first attempt involves luring the unsuspecting Maurice to La Corrida, a nightclub which they run in Granada.  Here, the unsuspecting taxi driver is surprised by the number of people who want to dance with him.  Another botched attempt to recover the diamond causes pandemonium to break out in the nightclub.  Unscathed by this latest calamity, the holidaymakers resume their road journey, only to find themselves put behind bars when the troublesome jewel is found on them by a police patrol.  Maurice can hardly wait to get back to Paris and resume his mundane life as an honest cabby.  A suspicious looking couple in the back of his taxi bring to mind his recent adventures in Spain.  Can it be that Myriam and Fred have just re-entered his life?