Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)

A bookseller saves a tramp from drowning and shelters him, but the tramp's odd behavior starts to wear everyone down.

Director:

Jean Renoir

Writer:

René Fauchois (play)

Stars:

Michel Simon, Marcelle Hainia, Sévérine Lerczinska

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Michel Simon	...	Priape Boudu
Marcelle Hainia	...	Emma Lestingois
Sévérine Lerczinska	...	Chloë Anne Marie, la bonne
Jean Gehret	...	Vigour
Max Dalban	...	Godin
Jean Dasté	...	L'étudiant
Charles Granval	...	Édouard Lestingois (as Charles Granval Sociétaire de la Comédie Française)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Geneviève Cadix

Storyline

Boudu, a tramp, jumps into the Seine. He is rescued by Mr Lestingois, a gentle and good bookseller, who gives shelter to him. Mrs Lestingois and the maid Anne-Marie (Mr Lestingois' mistress) are far from delighted, for Boudu is lazy, dirty and salacious...

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Plot Keywords:

comedy of manners | satire | fish out of water | rags to riches | eccentric family | 

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Taglines:

A Recently Rediscovered Renoir...Discover It For Yourself!

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

23 February 1967 (USA)

Also Known As:

Boudu Saved from Drowning

Filming Locations:

Berges de la Seine, Paris, France

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$2,805

Company Credits

Production Co:

Les Établissements Jacques Haïk, Les Productions Michel Simon, Crédit Cinématographique Français (CCF)

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Mono (Tobis-Klangfilm)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.19 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This film has a 100% rating based on 23 critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Édouard Lestingois: Anne-Marie, you are like the nymphs. You are as graceful as they are and could frolic in mossy glades, drink from the springs, and dance naked under the moon on summer nights. Bacchus would have presided at the nuptials of Priapus Lestingois and his Chloë, Anne-Marie.

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Connections

Featured in Cinéastes de notre temps: Jean Renoir le patron, 2e partie: La direction d'acteur (1967)

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Soundtracks

Générique
Written by Léo Daniderff (uncredited)
Performed by Raphaël

User Reviews

He rose from the gutter

..sorry from the river.but it's important to bear in mind that Boudu is a metamorphosis of Legrand,the hero of Renoir's precedent work "la chienne" ,who became a tramp at the end of that movie.And like Nana in Renoir's eponymous silent movie adapted from Zola,he rose from the waters ("sauvé des eaux" is the exact meaning of the name "Mosis")to shake the well meaning bourgeoisie.A bourgeoisie where a piano is in the house because you must have one even if you do not play the piano. Almost thirty years before Luis Bunuel ("Viridiana" 1961) ,Renoir denounces the bourgeois charity ,which is a great weight off our guilty minds.Boudu is revolutionary,like Moliere's "Tartuffe" ,he squeezes Lestingois dry,but he knows from the start he will not be part of them .He refuses conventions,marriage is the worst of them all.These final sequences ,where Renoir made the best use of "blue Danube" I know (with Kubrik's "2001",but in a diametrically opposite way),are the key of the movie.Boudu looks like,at the end of the movie, like some distant cousin of Charlie Chaplin ,but a Chaplin who would have discovered cynicism.

Needless to say,"Boudu" would not be "Boudu" without Michel Simon's extraordinary presence.Such an actor does not exist anymore in French contemporary cinema.And his filmography is full of treasures.To think that he also worked with Duvivier,Carné,Clair,Decoin and so many more..

Remakes "down and out in Beverly Hills" with Nick Nolte and Bette Middler. "Boudu" ,by Gérard Jugnot,this very year. Are they necessary?