Somewhat disappointing, alas, especially the last twenty minutes which seems to have been tacked on because the scriptwriter ran out of ideas. All the slapstick in the first 60 minutes was certainly most lavishly staged, but I thought the movie relied too much on props and also centered too much on Fernandel who obviously believed that all he needed to do in this movie was to open his mouth and show off his trademark grin at extremely frequent intervals -- say ten times a minute. Fortunately, the support cast is an extremely able line-up. Any movie with Paulette Dubost is a good movie, in my opinion. And Therese Dorny is also well served here. The direction was competent enough, but I expected much more from Rene Le Henaff, a superb film editor who must surely have realized that the last twenty minutes were just plain boring. Any run-of-the-mill Hollywood director could have staged this stuff far more excitingly and a whole lot more humorously.
Review of Caught in the Foreign Legion
