L'assassin est dans l'annuaire (1962)

User Rating:

4.9/10   

Director:

Léo Joannon

Writers:

Charles Exbrayat (novel)
Jean Halain (writer)

Release Date:

2 March 1962 (France)

Genre:

Crime

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

Fernandel	...	Albert Rimond
Georges Chamarat	...	Leclerc
Henri Crémieux	...	Le juge d'instruction
Robert Dalban	...	Le commissaire
Marie Déa	...	Édith
Paul Faivre	...	Le patron du café
Gisèle Grimm	...	Annette
Jacques Harden	...	Bertrand
Léo Joannon	...	Le docteur Jousseaume
Bernard Lavalette	...	Martel
Céline Léger	...	La monitrice
Alice Leitner	...	La vendeuse loterie
Charles Lemontier	...	Le premier cantonnier
Claire Olivier	...	Mme Levasseur
Noël Roquevert	...	Le monsieur austère de l'avenue des Tilleuls

Also Known As:

Assassin in the Phonebook (International: English title)
Cet imbécile de Rimoldi

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16

Company:

Marianne Productions

Comedy,melodrama,film noir,whodunit....

....this Leo Joannon effort is all this ...but not more!

Not unlike Julien Duvivier's "l'homme à l'imperméable" which also featured Fernandel,was also adapted from a Charles Exbrayat novel ,and was finally a failure cause Fernandel is definitely not a film noir actor.

"L'assassin Est Dans l'Annuaire" is more entertaining although it is a bizarre concoction.

Bits of melodrama show up now and than:Fernandel is alone in the world,his colleagues' laughing stock,no love of his own,he looks at the orphans who play in the park under their teacher's watchful eye;Marie Dea"s character and her little boy ,Pierre,whose photograph is in the apartment she shares with her brother but who is living in the country...Fernandel-the-man-in-search-of-love is a character he often played in the past notably in Marcel Pagnol's works ("Angèle" "Nais" whose screenplay Pagnol wrote)

Comedy: Fernandel's character is so dumb,so naive that he can be fooled by everyone.Either he is idiot,or he is a genius ,the Police say,but the shrink (played by the director) knows better.

film noir:the harbor (Rouen) ,the dark streets,the bank and his manager,a small part of a femme fatale played by Edith Scob; but the film noir soon turns to.....

...whodunit as one by one ,the gangsters are strangled by an unknown hand ...

It is a bit stodgy,but Fernandel makes it all worthwhile;no masterpiece,by a long shot,but entertaining.