Bourvil Movies
French actor/singer Bourvil (his professional name taken from the Bourville district of his native Normandy) was musically inclined from his youth, when he played trumpet in a municipal band. Developing his singing while in military service, Bourvil first stepped on stage in 1937 as an amateur entertainer, using the stage name "Andrel." By 1938 he had become a fixture of the French music halls with his signature song, "Ignace," and at the time of the Nazi occupation Bourvil was an established radio performer. Though popular, it took Bourvil a while to develop his own style and stop imitating his idol, Gallic comedian Fernandel. Bourvil made his screen debut in a tiny part in Croisieres siderales (1941), but officially his first film was La Ferme du Pendu, filmed in 1943 and released outside France in 1945. An established comic performer, Bourvil did more stage than film work in the 1950s, though he was memorable as Planchet in the 1953 French Les Trois Mousquetoris,- and, less lovably, as the nasty innkeeper in the 1956 version of Les Miserables. Comparatively unknown to American audiences, Bourvil was given a wonderful moment in the Hollywood-financed war epic The Longest Day (1962), in which as the Mayor of Colleville he effusively greets the invading allied troops at Normandy and offers his negligible services as a soldier. The last of Bourvil's English-language appearances was in another all-star spectacular, Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1954
The Gallic swashbuckler Cadet-Rousselle stars Francois Perrier in the title role. In love with the mayor's daughter, Rousselle is separated from her by money and by his low-born parentage. He heads off to Paris, there to find fame and fortune and make himself worthy of his sweetheart. En route, however, Cadet-Rousselle gets mixed up with a band of gypsies who plan to help the Royalists topple the New French Republic. Adventure piles upon adventure as Rousselle narrows escapes death at every turn. With him all the way is the new love of his life, fiery gypsy lass Violetta (Dany Robin). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, François Perier, (more)
- 1962
A lovely young nurse finds herself framed for the murder of a hospital patient who died after she administered an injection. She goes to court where eventually, the real killer is revealed by his own jilted lover in this French drama. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1960
This is a routine, somewhat melodramatic wartime tale set in Occupied France and featuring Michele Morgan as Juliette, a woman with two children who is forced to flee the occupied zone for the French free zone after her partisan husband is captured by the Germans. Juliette cannot manage this escape with her family on her own and so Fortunat (Bourvil) agrees to escort her across the checkpoints, posing as her husband. That is not an easy bluff because he is a simple peasant while she is from the upper echelons of the social hierarchy. Matters become complicated when they cross paths with a deported Jewish family, and even more complicated when Fortunat and Juliette start to fall in love. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michèle Morgan, Bourvil, (more)
- 1965
La Guerre Secrete is divided into four separate vignettes, each scene representing a day in the life of international espionage agents. Stories involve a secret agent (Vittorio Gassman) who goes undercover as a kidnapper, an attempt to impede a Russian attack on two submarines, and an undercover agent confronting a traitor in the Berlin offices of the CIA. Linking the stories is Robert Ryan as a US Intelligence chief. Terence Young directed the English-language sequences, while Christian-Jacques and Carlo Lizzani handled the French and Italian sequences, respectively. German director Werner Klinger's name does not appear on the US credits of The Dirty Game, inasmuch as his scenes were cut from all American prints. Dirty Game sank without a trace on its initial release, only to pop up on television, intermittently, throughout the '70s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Robert Ryan, (more)
- 1969
Laurent (William Holden) is willing to give his terminally ill son Pascal (Brook Fuller) anything to make his last days comfortable. The unfortunate boy is stricken with leukemia after being showered with radioactive poison when an airplane exploded. Laurent takes Pascal back to Paris where he and his girlfriend Catherine (Virna Lisi) and his war buddy Verdun (Andre Bourvil) try to cater to his every wish. He buys a farm tractor and with the help of the faithful Verdun steals some wolves from the Paris zoo. Father and son spend as much time as they are allowed in this sentimental family story. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Holden, Virna Lisi, (more)
- 1969
This sexually suggestive comedy also manages to simultaneously lampoon the French social security system. Chaminade (Bourvil) is the veterinarian who watches as a woman jumps off the roof of a small building. After the girl is caught by a folksinger with a striking physique, he rushes to offer assistance to the jumper and her hero. The woman is distraught over not having enough lovemaking, so the good doctor prescribes sex as the cure and enlists the folksinger to perform the services. When the word quickly gets around and love-starved women start lining up at the doctor's door for the folksinger's services, more men must be hired to satisfy the clientele. Soon the police and the judgmental tax inspector pay a visit to the clinic, which is under constant expansion and renovation. Chaminade takes the place of a stuttering government assemblyman and successfully argues for the service to be included in the social security payments in this offbeat comedy that relies on subtle innuendo instead of graphic depictions of sex. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Francis Blanche, (more)
- 1963
- NR
In this WWII comedy, a French POW escapes and hides at an inn. After the war, he stays at the inn to help the innkeeper, whom he has become involved with, rather than return to his wife. When the innkeeper's husband shows up ten years later, the POW goes back to his wife, whom he finds married to the chef at the cafe he ran. His wife refuses to sleep with the chef until a divorce is granted. The chef returns home to Normandy, thinking that he is out of luck, but the POW follows him and tells him that if he takes responsibility for his wife and the cafe, he will grant the divorce. The POW's loneliness is relieved when the innkeeper tells him that her husband has gone to Siberia and they are free to get married. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide
- 1946
A corrupt, lecherous farming son and the destruction he brings to his family is featured in this melodrama. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Vanel, Bourvil, (more)
- 1964
Triquet (Bourvil) is a policeman who is forced to retire early when he nabs too many crooks while he is not on the clock in this satirical crime comedy. He captures a criminal who is headed for the guillotine, but the condemned man escapes when the instrument of death malfunctions. Triquet is called on to find the crook and convince him that, according to the law of the land, since the execution attempt failed, he is free from his death sentence. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Jean-Louis Barrault, (more)
- 1968
This slapstick comedy concerns a college professor who stages a one-man vendetta against television. A hare-brained inventor has produced an aerosol spray that when applied effectively renders television antennae useless. Armand (Bourvil) enlists the help of a gymnast who scales heights to apply the spray to the receivers of his students to keep them from being polluted by the senseless medium. Soon the stuffy network executives launch an all-out search for the perpetrator as television revenues plummet. The police are soon called in to solve the mystery as the professor and his crew slowly move towards their ultimate goal of spraying the Eiffel tower. Armand demands an audience with the President and uses his threat to cut off all television to insure the meeting will take place. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Francis Blanche, (more)
- 1966
In this British war comedy, set in WW II, a bomber crew is shot down over Paris during the Nazi occupation. They are helped out of the city by several good-hearted Frenchman. They make it to the steambath where they had an important rendezvous. They then begin the final part of their escape. A cross-eyed German inadvertently helps them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louis de Funès, Bourvil, (more)
- 1965
Bourdin (Bourvil) is a ticket puncher on the Paris subway who writes a book about a train robbery in this routine comedy. After he is turned down by several publishers who find his story implausible, Bourdin recruits a gang of crooks to carry out the plan to prove it is possible. The plan backfires and he gets mixed up with thugs led by the notorious underworld figure Filippi (Paul Meurissa). ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Paul Meurisse, (more)
- 1959
In this French drama a horse dealer is quite surprised when one of his mares foals a green colt. The verdant critter brings his family fame and fortune. When the mare dies, her picture is hung in a prominent place in the house. It is not long after her death, that the dealer dies, leaving his land to his two sons. Things are well until a jealous neighbor turns them in to the Prussians. When the boy's mother gives herself to a Prussian officer to save her son, she does not realize that her son and his friends are under the bed. The lad swears to have revenge on the traitorous neighbor, and indeed he does. Fifteen years later, the boy seduces his neighbor's daughter. Unfortunately his brother, not knowing of his mother's disgrace, nominates the wicked neighbor for mayor. The vengeful brother is even more enraged when he discovers that the neighbor's family has known about the betrayal all along. To add insult to injury, his daughter has fallen in love with the neighbor's son! Unable to bear it any longer, the brother forces the neighbor's son under his bed and makes him listen to the love-making between the brother and the boy's mother (who willingly sacrifices her honor for him.) ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Francis Blanche, (more)
- 1956
The French/Italian Four Bags Full stars Jean Gabin as an aging artist, ever on the prowl for excitement. The time is World War II, and the place is occupied France. Timorous cab driver Gabin finagles Bourvil into transporting four suitcases full of precious pork through Paris, under the noses of the Nazi officials. While the film is not technically a comedy, there are several nervously amusing moments as the mismatched Gabin and Bourvil wend their way across the City of Light. Adapted from a novel by Marcel Ayme, Four Bags Full was originally released as La Traversee de Paris. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Jean Gabin, (more)
- 1960
Set in the 18th century, this French swashbuckler centers on Lagardere (Jean Marais), an adventurer whose life is affected when he decides to help out a nobleman in distress. Lagardere's comic companion Passepoil (Bourvil) adds a light touch to the proceedings. But when the nobleman is vilely murdered by a villainous courtier, Lagardere is duty-bound to raise the victim's little daughter as though she were his own. Time goes by, though not enough to erase the memory of the murder from the adventurer's mind. He decides to disguise himself as a hunchback in order to be accepted into the faction that had the nobleman killed, and from the inside as it were, plots his revenge. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Marais, Bourvil, (more)
- 1960
Andre Hunebelle directs this talky, standard costume drama set in the court of King Louis XIII in the 17th century. King Louis (Christian Fourcade) has his problems -- a power-hungry regent is trying to take the seat of government right out from underneath him. In order to stave off this bid for power, the king turns to François (Jean Marais), a swordsman and fighter who swashbuckles better than anyone else. François also incurs the wrath of the king's enemy but is compensated by the fact that the lovely Gisele (Elsa Martinelli) has noticed him. Geared more towards the younger audiences, Le Capitan also features a stock comic character, Cogolin, played by Bourvil. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Marais, Bourvil, (more)
Corey (Alain Delon) is the young gun in the French underworld who has just been released from prison. Escaped convict Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonté) hides in the trunk of Corey's car. The two enlist the help of an alcoholic former cop (Yves Montand) for an elaborate jewelry-store robbery. Police inspector Mattei (Bourvil) whom Vogel escaped in the beginning of the film is on the case trying to recapture the criminals. He is not opposed to using blackmail techniques to get answers out of the unwilling witnesses and criminals brought in for questioning. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alain Delon, Bourvil, (more)
- 1969
The Brain (Le Cerveau) is a tongue-in-cheek caper film with more twists and turns than a rural Oregon highway. David Niven plays The Brain, so named because it was he who mapped out the British Great Train Robbery (it says here). Now The Brain plans to lift a fortune in NATO money, which is being shipped by train from France to Belgium. Complicating matters are a pair of free-lance thugs (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Bourvil), who hope to steal The Brain's plans and claim the money for themselves. A plot device derived from The Lavender Hill Mob involves a 50-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty. An amusing closing-credits bit caps this exhilarating exercise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, David Niven, (more)
- 1959
This well-acted-though routine wartime drama is the second such film in a row for young Jean Claude Brialy, who plays a member of one of two families who are experiencing the effects of the German Occupation. In general, both morals and morale have declined in the families so that a lonely married woman whose husband is in a prison camp is willing to have an affair with a 17-year-old youth. But beyond that indiscretion, her need for money in a tight economy drives her to get the young man involved in the lucrative black market. Meanwhile, the father of the indiscreet youth finds out what his son is doing and although he has been an ineffectual parent, he tries to lay down the law to his son. Unfortunately, the law at this time seems to be on vacation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Alain Delon, (more)
