63. Boudu Saved From Drowning (Boudu Sauve Des Eaux) (1932)

Directed By Jean Renoir

Synopsis

Bum is saved from drowning, wins lotery, goes back to being bum! Ta da!

Review

French commedies have until now managed to be consistently amusing and actually very risqué, while Love Me Tonight was an example of an American comedy which had some sexual liberties, the French commedies make it the rule more than the exception, and are all the better for it.

Boudu is no exception, it is a great film with Michel Simon, who was also great in La Chienne, as the main character, a thoroughly obnoxious and sex crazed hobo who gets taken in by a middle class family. Boudu is at the same time charming and extremely obnoxious, and the comparisons with the other famous Tramp of the cinema are inevitable, what if Chaplin's character was given a voice and a more hard core sex drive?

It is yet another comedy which will make you have a smile on your face the whole way through, and like in most French comedies of the time this is mainly based on witty dialogue and a genuine feeling of empathy for the characters. There is some slapstick here in Boudou's actions but that is not what is funny, his attitudes clashing with those around him are what works here. Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

Sorry, couldn't find anything on youtube...but Google Video has a little interview with Michel Simon, very old, of both La Chienne and Boudu:



From Wikipedia:

The film was remade in 1986 for an American audience as Down and Out in Beverly Hills, [with Nick Nolte] directed by Paul Mazursky. Another remake, Boudu, was released in 2005. Gérard Jugnot directed, from a screenplay by Philippe Lopes-Curval. It starred Gérard Depardieu as Boudu.