The Wild Oat
(1953)
|
|
| 0Share... |
The Wild Oat
(1953)
|
|
| 0Share... |
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Fernandel | ... | ||
|
|
Madeleine Sylvain | ... | |
|
|
Georges Chamarat | ... | |
|
|
Pierrette Bruno | ... |
Françoise Zanetti
|
|
|
Francis Linel | ... |
Justin Hébrard
|
|
|
Georges Briquet |
|
|
|
|
Edmond Ardisson | ... |
Le facteur
(as Ardisson)
|
|
|
Henri Arius | ... |
Le Gendarme
|
|
|
Mag-Avril | ... |
La Vieille Fille
|
|
|
José Casa | ... |
Le garde-champêtre
|
|
|
Manuel Gary | ... |
Le Receveur du Car
|
|
|
René Génin | ... |
Le secrétaire de mairie
|
|
|
Antonin Berval | ... |
Courtecuisse
|
|
|
André Carnège | ... |
Le sous-préfet
|
|
|
Jean Mello | ... |
Le Gendarme
(as Mello)
|
A small village is torn apart by a quarrel between the baker and the italian grocery tenant, mother of a pregnant young girl. She accuses the baker's son, doing his military service in Algeria, to be the father of the would be child. Offended, the baker refuses to deliver bread to the villagers standing on the mother's side. Written by Jean-Marie Berthiaume <jiembe@videotron.ca>
In 1938,Marcel Pagnol released "La Femme Du Boulanger": a baker did not want to make bread anymore because his wife had left home to live her life with a handsome shepherd.In fact ,Verneuil's "Le Boulanger de Valorgue" is a cross between "baker's wife" (one of Orson Welles' favorites ,they say) and its follow-up "la Fille du Puisatier" where a young girl was pregnant by a boy forced to go to war (WW2).There's nothing really new under the sun of Provence and I do not share the precedent user's views: it's not necessarily more watchable than Pagnol's works because there's not here a single scene that can equal Raimu blaming his (female) cat La Pomponnette.
That said "le Boulanger de Valorgue" is certainly pleasant enough with its depiction of a Provençal village ,its mayor,its spinster and its gendarmes and a birth (naturally an unwed girl) which sets the whole community at loggerheads.The story has become,like Pagnol's ,thoroughly obsolete nowadays ,but it's still much fun to watch Fernandel.