Un de la Canebière (1937)
Directed by René Pujol

Film Review

If the Marx Brothers were to hijack a Marcel Pagnol film it could scarcely help bearing some resemblance to Un de la Canebière, one of the liveliest and most picturesque French film comedies of the 1930s.  Okay, so the film's director René Pujol was never in the same league as Marcel Pagnol, but his films have as much of an authentic meridional feel to them as Pagnol's and were just as popular - even more so.  Groucho, Harpo and Chico had nothing to fear from Henri Alibert, Rellys and René Sarvil, but the latter still form a formidable comic team and their ability to play off one another and turn routine farce into comedy gold is what makes Un de la Canebière such an enjoyable romp.  It's hard to explain why Pagnol's Marseille films are still widely lauded around the world whilst this delightful comedy - with the same setting and a cast of comparable quality - has been all but forgotten - even in France.

Un de la Canebière was originally an operetta, first performed on stage in 1935.  It was written by Henri Alibert, soon to become one of the most popular French singers of his generation, and René Sarvil, a comic actor and writer of no mean talent.  Music was supplied by Alibert's father-in-law Vincent Scotto, who, one of the most prolific French composers of the time, scored many a film by Marcel Pagnol and even took the lead role in one of Pagnol's early films - Jofroi (1934).  The operetta was a hit and spawned the successful film adaptation two years later.  Twenty years on, the film was remade - in garish colour - as Trois de la Canebière (1956), directed by Maurice de Canonge with Michel Galabru in the role of Pénible.  Several of the musical numbers in the film became popular hits of the day, in particular Le plus beau tango du monde and Cane... Cane... Canebière.

In contrast to many other high profile chansonniers who followed in his footsteps (a long roll-call that includes Tino Rossi, Luis Mariano, Charles Trenet and Georges Guétary) Henri Alibert was a reasonably talented actor and comedian as well as an instantly likeable singer, and what made him particularly successful on screen was his ability to complement other great performers.  In this and the subsequent two films Alibert made with Pujol - Titin des Martigues (1938) and Les Gangsters du château d'If (1939) - the actor-singer has a rapport with his co-stars - Rellys, Pierre Larquey, René Sarvil - that can only be described as magical.  What makes Un de la Canebière so satisfying and effortlessly entertaining is the chemistry between Alibert and his two comedy cohorts, Rellys and Sarvil - the threesome works so well that you wonder why they never went on to became France's answer to the Marx Brothers.

Alibert, the good-looking one with perfect teeth and a perfect smile to match, naturally gets to play the romantic lead and sing the most famous number (Le plus beau tango du monde) alongside the even more photogenic Germaine Roger (another immense star of French operetta).  Rellys and Sarvil are the pantomime uglies who are here just to make us laugh - something they have ample opportunity to do.  Brandon Thomas's famous Victorian farce Charley's Aunt gets a sly revamp as Rellys slips out of his fisherman's garb and into corsets and old lace, literally dragging the film to a whole new level of hilarity.  Although memorable for his dramatic roles in Pagnol's films - many consider his Ugolin in Manon des sources (1953) to be a career high point - Rellys was most naturally a comic performer, and it is as the fake Aunt Clarisse in Un de la Canebière that he is at his funniest (scarily resembling a tribute to Old Mother Riley by old man Steptoe).  The scene in which the fake and real aunts finally get to meet is one to savour - it is an iconic moment in French film comedy.  The Marx Brothers were mad not to have remade this film.

Film Synopsis

Toinet, Girelle and Pénible are three friends who lead an amiable existence as humble fishermen in the sunny port of Marseille.  Toinet and Girelle mistake Francine and Malou for a pair of film stars and, to make a positive impression, pass themselves off as the owners of a large sardine canning factory.  Francine and Malou are too wise to be taken in by such an obvious lie, so, to teach the two fishermen a lesson, they place a large sardine order with them.  Bienaimé, who is equally smitten with Francine, is roped into the plan.  Assured by the girls that the fishermen will not be able to fulfil the order, he signs a contract for half a million cans of sardines.   Unwilling to back down, Toinet and Girelle persuade Pénible to pose as his aged Aunt Clarisse, who is rich enough to be the factory's owner.  Realising that they cannot supply the ordered sardines, the fishermen are forced to fake Aunt Clarisse's death to render the contract void, but in doing so they overlook a clause that entitles Bienaimé to compensation.  Toinet and Girelle are rescued by a Greek businessman who, believing he killed Aunt Clarisse in a boating accident, offers the fishermen the cash they need to set up a real sardine canning business.  All goes well until the real Aunt Clarisse shows up unexpectedly...