«Voyage Surprise» is a comedy directed by surrealist Pierre Prévert that, at the same time, heralds the aesthetic of the theater of the absurd, which manifested itself in France a few years later, thanks to the Romanian author Eugène Ionesco. Pierre was the younger brother of prolific screenwriter Jacques Prévert (collaborator of Marcel Carné, Jean Renoir, and other classic filmmakers), and made films and television, but I was only familiar with his anarchic medium-length film «L'affaire est dans le sac» (1932), which was a revelation that I fully enjoyed when I saw it in the 1980s.
Now I have seen this film (in a restored version, which is 23 minutes longer than the original according to several official sites, such as the Cinémathèque Française), and it is easy to see why it has so many admirers and why, as they say, it was an inspiration for The Beatles' TV movie «Magical Mystery Tour» (1967). In it, old Puiff (the wonderful Sinoël, who made the film at 78) sets in motion his long-dreamed- "Voyage Surprise," in which he takes a group of tourists on an adventure, on a tour without an itinerary, unaware that they are the center of an intrigue related to the kingdom of Strombolia, ruled by the evil Duchess Marika (played by the dwarf Piéral), who has been a refugee in France since the Strombolians threw her out of a window of her castle and smuggled her jewels out of the country, only to end hidden in the toolbox of the "Voyage Surprise" vehicle. There is also corporate espionage and rivalry (with another travel agency), plus a picnic lunch with a newlywed couple, a brothel with rooms full of effects and tricks, a play involving all the tourists on stage, a dungeon, the palace, and two detectives on their trail.
What strikes me most is the positive, festive spirit of this postwar film, compared to the Italian melodramas that were being made in those years, until filmmakers Vittorio de Sica and Renato Castallani made respectively movies like «Miracle in Milan» (1951) and «Two Cents Worth of Hope» (1952) that eased tensions. In «Voyage Surprise» there are no miracles or cents, but a delirious portrait of France in 1946, in the style and pacing of cinema of those years. Highly recommended.
