Having been cheated on by his wife with a young composer, the desperate Cabassou is considered dead by the locals. He is mistaken for a ghost because, living in a cave, he only comes out at night. His friend Motto persuades him to "commercialize" this situation. From now on, people will pay to hear the voice of the famous ghost. From now on, he will become famous. This is the moment he will choose to become alive again.
That the writers were influenced by Marcel Pagnol is to state the obvious ; the screenplay looks like a cross between "la femme du boulanger" (the baker's wife) and the not yet released "Manon Des Sources "; of course Gilles Grangier is no match for Pagnol; to locate the action in Provence is not enough to make a classic .
Nevertheless Grangier is a
good craftsman and his movie is not devoid of qualities ; the archictect-poet everyone laughs at, turned into a saint , thanks to a "Saint" Woman who tells the village his spirit rose from the dead ; and as everyone knows, death "sells" : Cabassou's poems becomes a literature masterpiece which win the poetry prize and sells like hot cakes; the hypocrisy of the whole village that the "ghost " blames,ridiculing honors and glory .
Fernandel sings "mon coeur saigne pour toi" (my heart bleeds for you)in a tragic delivery which looks like parody.
