Bécassine

There's nothing wrong with this movie, if you take it for what it really is: a romantic comedy with musical interludes and two-dimensional characters. If you expect it to somehow reflect the characters in the famous comic book series of the same name, you'll be very disappointed, however.

Pretty much everything from the comic book is changed here. In the comic book series Bécassine is a kindly young Breton living in Paris as the governess for Loulotte, the niece of the Marquise de Grand-Air. She is naïve, certainly, and not familiar with many of the ways of the world, but she is very even-tempered, devoted to her mistress, and not clever in either a positive or a negative way. In this movie, Bécassine is played by the same actress who just the year before had played the Parisian maid in Les Règles du jeu, the quintessential French movie about, among other things, the superficiality of the aristocracy. Dubost carries too much of that character over into Bécassine, her next role. She turns her into a sometimes nastily clever trickster who, like the maid in Les Règles, is constantly making fun of the aristocracy. A completely different character.

La marquise de Grand-Air, her mistress, is also different. In the comic book series, she is a very kind, and remarkably egalitarian woman. In this movie, she is just the same old stereotype of the snobbish elderly aristocrat.

The niece, Loulotte, is replaced with a daughter, Anne, who is old enough to be the female romantic interest here.

The plot - a group of thieves disguised as aristocrats to prey on unsuspecting hosts - is an old one, though not altogether foreign to the comic book series. In Bécassine aux bains de mer, for example, there is a French couple who disguise themselves as Spaniards to sell pottery left to them by an eccentric relative. They aren't really thieves, but the idea is not altogether dissimilar.

There are a few lame jokes aimed at poking fun at Bretons from a small town. Bécassine has a pet pig - think a less intelligent Arnold in Green Acres - and her uncle, Corentin, is a drunk. Not much is done with either of those threads.

There are a few pleasant musical numbers that have nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

In short, a pleasant but forgettable movie.

"Bécassine" was one of the first European comic strips ,although its author did not use the speech bubbles ;it began to define what is known under the "clear line" term,which spawned the whole Belgian school ,of which Tintin is the most famous work.

But the people are very divided on the character:a lot of people (particularly Bretons)have always thought that this bubble head servant was a way of laughing at Bretagne,which would have been behind the times.There's a certain charm in these comic books nonetheless,particularly when it verges on absurd.Becassine carries the orders to the letter ,and as she has her own logic,it's really funny in places.

When "Becassine" was transferred to the screen in 1940,there was an outcry in Bretagne:a real storm in a teacup,considering what was happening in France at the time.

Paulette Dubost who portrays Becassine is an estimable actress,but she is not Bécassine ;no actress could be Bécassine ,as no actor can be Tintin (S.Spielberg has understood the problem quite well) Two of the characters of the book appear in the movie: the Marquise and Uncle Corentin.The screenplay which involves jewels theft and insurance swindle is abysmal.Bécassine has a pet piggy and anyway she is not as stupid as in the books ,which is a shame :I dare you to laugh more than once or twice .