La femme du boulanger

I was not aware of this warm-hearted comedy, but I am so glad I watched it. Made in France in 1938, it is full of genuine characters who would never have passed by the Hayes Code censors in the United States at the time. A small French village has suffered through first a poor baker, and then no baker at all. Now the villagers rejoice at the arrival of a new and talented baker, along with his young and very pretty wife. Disaster strikes in less than a week, when the baker's young wife suddenly runs away with a handsome young shepherd. The baker is devastated, and worse from the point view of the villagers, he loses the will to bake.

While pivotal to the plot, the wife of the title is only one minor character in a film full of delightfully exaggerated characters. There are those who carry on cordial feuds that have lasted generations, on the assumption that "there had to be a good reason", while others are quick to start new ones. There is the agnostic schoolteacher, the earnest young priest, the entitled local landowner, the judgmental spinster, the long-winded storyteller, and so forth. None of these characters are presented with anything less than good-natured affection and delight. In a different film, the mockery some of the characters aim at the distressed baker could easily have tipped into cruelty, but meanness is never felt.

Even in a cast full of delightful over-the-top characters, the lead Raimu, as Aimable the baker, stands out in every scene. He is the good-natured everyman, playing a comedic character who also remains fully believable. His genuine pain and disbelief at the unexpected disappearance of his wife is always felt, even while the film shows us the humour in every situation. The scene in which Aimable and his wife finally come face-to-face again is masterfully played. I intend to search out other films made by this French star.

This joyful film is a not just fun to watch, but will leave you with both a smile on your face and a warm spot in your heart.

Along with Marius, La Femme du boulanger is at the top of the list of Pagnol's films, which is to say that it is among the best films ever made. (This is not just my opinion; evidently Orson Welles said the same thing.) It is a "typical" Pagnol film, in that the plot is rudimentary at best. All the interest is the characters and their dialogue. And, despite very good performances by several of the supporting characters, this film achieves greatness because of the dialogue Pagnol gave Aimable (the baker) and the way Raimu delivers it. A mixture of the most moving pathos and the funniest comedy, the Baker is one of the great characters in film. (Trust me, the chapter in Giono's novel that served as the ostensible "inspiration" for this story is negligible. The genius is all Pagnol's.) The scene that every Frenchman knows is the last one, when Aimable takes out his anger at his wife's infidelity on their cat, Pomponette, but that is an atypical moment in this movie. It is all about Aimable's suffering, at the hands of his wife but also as a result of the way the town treats him. And Raimu conveys that suffering as only the greatest actors have: with understatement.

Marius is funnier and has greater variety of character. But La Femme du boulanger shows what a great director and screenwriter can do with great actors. Movies get no better than this.

Such a pity that over eighty years on this undisputed classic from the Golden Age of French cinema has attracted so few reviews but glad to see that most of them are appreciative and full of praise.

Before an unfortunate rift in their professional relationship Marcel Pagnol and Jean Giorno enjoyed one of the most fruitful partnerships in the history of film.

The most renowned of their collaborations is undoubdtedly 'The Baker's Wife' which Pagnol has adapted and considerably enlarged from an 'episode' in Giorno's novel 'Blue Boy'. The casting of Raimu who had already immortalised César in Pagnol's Marseilles trilogy is the icing on the cake.

The story is simply told. Aimable the baker is married to a much younger Aurelie. She runs off with the local hunk and Aimable refuses to bake any more bread until she returns. Faced with this crisis the villagers set about getting her back. Husband and wife are eventually reconciled in one of the greatest scenes ever put on film and Aimable resumes baking 'le pain extraordinaire'.

Raimu's performance as Aimable transcends the art of acting and voluptuous Ginette Leclerc is perfect as Aurelie. She went on to excel in 'Le Corbeau' but thereafter her career suffered from accusations of collaboration. Great supporting cast notably Fernand Charpin and Robert Vattier.

This film was a resounding success in America, not only winning the New York Film Critics Circle for Best Foreign Film but clocking up a record-breaking seventy-five week run in New York alone.

The rich characterisations plus the combination of comedy and pathos make this one of the handful of films that can truly be called sublime.

Let us leave the final words to Albert Einstein: 'It is the finest, the most human film that I have ever seen'.

My favourite of all the Pagnol films, including the recent ones, due to the timeless, moving performance by the great Raimu as the lovelorn baker. The French stars of that period have never been surpassed as character actors, and for this film the writer was a great character author.

In a town where the priest and the teacher argue, where neighbors wrangle because this one's trees as throwing shade on the other's giant cabbages, where no one talks to anyone else for reasons their grandfathers didn't remember, where the last baker hanged himself, there's a new baker in town. It's Raimu, and his bread is magnificent. His wife, pretty Ginette Leclerc promptly runs off with a handsome shepherd. Raimu immediately goes to pieces and the town is split between mocking him, calling her a tramp and worrying about where they'll get bread.

One of the stories about this movie is that Marcel Pagnol wanted Joan Crawford for the role of the baker's wife. She declined on the grounds that she didn't speak French. The other story is that after the war, Orson Welles asked Pagnol for an introduction to Raimu. He was told Raimu was dead and wept. I can understand the reaction. Raimu is so clueless and sad and yet very funny in the role. Any man who has had a woman he loves leave him without any warning can sympathize, even as he looks at Raimu and laughs.

Raimu could fill this movie by himself, yet there are other good roles: the local nobleman who has seven young women living in his chateau; the priest who mouths platitudes without understanding anything; the women who gossip and wrangle among themselves; the old man who has found Mlle Leclerc, but has to tell the story in his own, endless way.

I'd like to have seen Miss Crawford in the role. She would have aced the physical acting, and if she couldn't be coached in the thirty or forty words the character speaks, they could have looped her sides. No one could have replaced Raimu in this magnificent, sad comedy.