La famille Duraton

Radio man Jules Berry wrecks his car and is invited by a suburb family for diner. He finds the gossip conversation so funny he imagines a radio show around this punctual diner, without telling the family, the leader being Noël Noël. But at the café du Commerce of the village, local people meet at that hour for the ritual aperitif listening to the gossip family show they identify in their village. They wonder who's talking about themselves and funny misunderstandings appear. Director Christian Stengel and his writers Noël Noël and René Wheeler show how France was living just before WWII and the importance of radio broadcasting with all kind of shows. One of the radio employee is Jean Solar, cousin of Christian Stengel, who wrote songs with Francis Blanche for Charles Trenet. In some of his movies, Stengel was interested in new talents and way of life : singer Charles Trenet in "Je chante", radio TSF in "la Famille Duraton", television in "Seul dans la nuit", the famous car Dyna Panhard in "Casse-cou, mademoiselle". Stengel was not a great director, just popular and entertaining.

The is film is based on a famous radio broadcast called "La Famille Duraton". A producer who needs to find an idea for a radio program has an accident near a small town.A family receives him and his secretary Nina for dinner and they spend a good moment.Then comes the idea, every day at 8 pm the family has supper.As the family doesn't have electricity, the producer wiil install the electricity in the house and at the same time a microphone in the great lamp of the dinning room.And now the radio has a new programa every day at 8 pm called "La famille Duraton" in which Adrien Martin, speak about the local politics, about the love affair between the doctor and the chemist's wife,etc.After some days the important persons of the small town realize that someone is speaking about them. La Famille Duraton is funny comedy about the new technics of broadcasting and about the life of a small town whose gossips and truths are knowned through all a country.

La Famille Duraton " was a comic radio broadcast ,which began in 1937 ,when TV sitcoms did not exist,for a good reason;it continued through the following decades,and finally called it a day in 1966!It spawned two French movies ("Les Duraton" 1956 and this movie) and yes! one American one,"True to life" ,directed by George Marshall in 1943 starring Franchot Tone.

Why would you deny yourself a good moment of fun?It's cinema Vérité (or radio Verité more like) before its time.

An unscrupulous radio Producer (Jules Berry ,true to form) whose car has broken down winds up in a small village among the broad mass of French people ;having dinner with the colorful Martin family ,he 's got a tremendous idea: to broadcast their daily supper,at 8 o'clock ,unbeknown to them .On the pretext of installing electricity in their humble home,he takes the opportunity to hide a microphone in the chandelier.

SO every night,the family "performs " live ,but the Producer uses the "Duraton" pseudonym ;he runs into difficulty when it comes to having Martin Sr(Noel-Noel ,true to form) praise the Vily furniture - broadcast sponsor-,but this is a huge success,the listeners never stops praising the "actors"' naturalness.

In the village café ,people begin to notice similarities between the would be fictional family unit and their neighbors,the Martin family;it's all the more annoying since some intimate secrets are involuntary revealed: for instance ,the doctor is the chemist's wife's lover and he communicates with her by prescriptions .Will they see through the trick?

Like the 1956 sequel,it's a funny comedy which smartly blends fiction and reality and in its very modest way,predates stuff like "the Truman show" .Far be it from me to call this a masterpiece,but it's really pleasant entertainment.