Il re delle corse

Grangier-Simonin-Audiard are really pulling a routine scam on us. Cheap idea turned into a flimsy script and then stretched to yeeee somewhat over 80min.

Jean Gabin is funny for 15min. Then it really gets tedious: repetitive and unengaging. Gabin bullying stiffs, steam-rolling credulous dumb guys and charming ladies does not get us a long way when he is just a bum to start with. A colourful, bigger-than-life bum if you will, but a bum all the same who does not aim to get anywhere and actually gets us nowhere.

That is the kind of movie that feels like a scam: you were naive enough to be lured to watch it. Worst of all it stood as a full train of free ammunition for the New Wave types, who did not even need the usual bad faith jeers to mock the total lack of a creative endeavour there.

I'd like to say this film was to horse racing what Bob, le Flaneur was to gambling but that would be too much hyperbole even for me. Yet I found this quite charming and enjoyable in its Frenchness. Funny in a sly way. Playing people and staying alive. Everybody is looking for their ship to come in even if it has already come in. Great supporting cast especially what is not much more than a cameo by the great Louis de Funès. Louis at his most animated is a throwback to the great silent film stars. He uses his voice more by making sounds than by dialogue. Actually the exasperations of the rest of the cast is used in that manner to great effect. Hats off to Jean Lefebvre as the hapless definition of a sidekick. And also, Madeleine Robinson, a former lover who returns for one last night of fun after marrying for convenience purposes. That's right our star Jean Gabin is fun and having fun in this somewhat out of character character. As his two shills state toward the end of the film, he's a real gentleman, old style. Ah, those were the days.

I watch this from time to time; each time it's a little more entertaining. It's not as good as some of the other later Jean Gabin films - Touche Pas au Grisbi, or Traversee de Paris - but it's a lot more relaxed. Jean Gabin is a sad piece of gambling wreckage, living from horserace to horserace by bullying his clientele to take shoddy tips. His pride and bluster are still intact, though, and what baldfaced lies he gets away with! The snapshot views of 1962 Paris are nice too - the Bois de Boulogne walkers, French horseracing, even a woman learning to cook pheasant from a TV show (and I thought that "la bonne cuisine" was a French genetic trait.....).