Titin des Martigues (1938)
Directed by René Pujol

Film Review

Henri Alibert's screen career got off to a flying start with Au pays du soleil (1933), adapted from a successful operetta which he had created the previous year with his father-in-law Vincent Scotto.  Alibert was now on the way to becoming one of France's most popular chansonniers and his talents, as both a singer and comic performer, were put to good use in a series of light film comedies, including three directed by one of the masters of this form of mass entertainment, René Pujol - Un de la Canebière (1937), Titin des Martigues (1938) and Les Gangsters du château d'If (1939).  In these films, Alibert was extremely well-partnered with some other great talents of the day, including Pierre Larquey, Rellys and Aimos, all of whom would leave a significant imprint on French cinema of the 1930s and '40s.

In Titin des Martigues, Alibert, Larquey and Rellys form a sublime comedy team that could easily give the Marx Brothers and the Threes Stooges a good run for their money.  As was typical of this genre of film, there's practically no sense to the narrative - it's essentially just a rapid succession of madcap escapades in which the likeably daft trio get themselves in and out of the narrowest of scrapes.  Every so often, there is a break in the daffy narrative to allow Alibert to make use of his vocal skills, but it is Rellys and Larquey who seem to have the most fun, clowning about as if their lives depended on it.  For those who only know Rellys for his dramatic roles (most likely his touching Ugolin in Marcel Pagnol's Manon des sources) this film will come as quite a surprise.  Once he had watched this film, the world famous clown Grock visited the actor and showered him with the warmest of compliments.

Rellys's uncanny similarity to Stan Laurel is made fun of in one scene, in which he is cruelly tormented by an Oliver Hardy look-a-like (Jim Gérald).  Larquey proves himself to be the world's worst animal minder when, one by one, the dozen or so dogs placed in his care by a trusting client start disappearing until he is left with only one - he ends up asking himself if one of the troublesome pooches isn't eating all the others.  Meanwhile, Rellys and Alibert are happy playing idiot taxi-boys to a pair of rich Americans, with fairly predictable results - in the Mack Sennett vein.  Titin des Martigues is about as silly as any unhinged French comedy of this time but its sense of fun is unflagging and the sizzling chemistry between the three leads (think of them as Van de Graaff generators in human form) ensure that there is never even the vaguest hint of a dull moment.  The laughs just keep coming.

Film Synopsis

Titin des Martigues is a cheerful young man who runs a lottery stall at a busy funfair in Paris.  He is desperately in love with the adorable Yvette, but he has a fierce rival in Dix-de-Der, who is equally determined that she should be his bride.  Through Dix-de-Der's connivance, Titin is ruined and his only hope of winning Yvette is to prove himself capable of earning an honest living.  With his loyal friends Lacroustille and Papafar, Titin heads off to the South of France and enthusiastically throws himself into whatever work comes his way, heedless of the disasters that lie ahead.  Luck appears to smile on the trio when they get themselves engaged as chauffeurs and dog-minder to a pair of wealthy Americans, but further calamities are just around the corner...