Ferdinand le noceur

At the time many French movies were based on plays for what they were worth ; most of them were "theatre de boulevard" .

This one has a good,nay cynical premise: because he would cheat on his wife , a pharmaceutical industry boss does not want his beloved daughter to suffer from a fickle husband ; so he chooses for her a very virtuous gent , who would never have sex before the marriage,even though he is not the handsome prince charming who makes the romantic girls dream .

The chosen one is one of his employees whose research has not been fruitful so far .There are good scenes ,notably that in the brothel where the naive lad thinks he is in a hotel :"how nice these mirrored walls " ; the gag about beer is welcome too; but it's hard to swallow that Fernandel -reluctantly-becomes a ladykiller overnight .

Anyway ,the director's role is close to zero in this kind of coarse comedy : they would rely on the actors and here the cast is first-class:not only Fernandel ,but also Alerme as the hypocrit boss, the Oudart/Carton brother-and-sister act , Paulette Dubost as the ingenue and Jane Marken as the nymphomaniac housewife ;you can spot Suzy Delair in a small role of a prostitute.

Not much food for thought,but some funny moments.

This was the second adaptation of the play for the silver screen. Mostly, it feels like the early days of talkies: René Sti only broke down the play into scenes and dialogue is the substitute for action.

Fernandel does his usual job : serious/straight/idealistic guy with a couple of songs and exactly two ill-tempered busts to give more strength to his naive character (when he happens to take half a dozen of the pills he invented).

The rest of the cast is also pretty good, so Ferdinand le Noceur remains a watchable old flick. Too bad it all gets bogged down in the old stage-play-blow-up rhythm.