Fanny (1932)

After Fanny's boyfriend leaves her and sails away, she finds out she's pregnant.

Director:

Marc Allégret

Writers:

Marcel Pagnol (play), Marcel Pagnol (screenplay)

Stars:

Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, Fernand Charpin

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Raimu	...	César
Pierre Fresnay	...	Marius
Orane Demazis	...	Fanny
Fernand Charpin	...	Honore Panisse (as Charpin)
Auguste Mouriès	...	Félix Escartefigue (as Mouriès)
Robert Vattier	...	Albert Brun (as Vattier)
Marcel Maupi	...	Innocent Mangiapan chauffeur du ferry-boat (as Maupi)
Alida Rouffe	...	Honorine Cabanis
Milly Mathis	...	Tante Claudine Foulon
Odette Roger	...	Fortunette
Louis Boulle	...	Elzéar

Storyline

Marius has left, signed up for a five year hitch on a ship bound for the Indian Ocean. In his few letters to his father César, he hardly mentions Fanny. When she finds she is pregnant, she considers her options: suicide, to raise the child on her own, to wait for Marius, or to marry Honoré Panisse, the older merchant who seeks her hand. These choices are emotional: to raise a bastard, to trust in Marius' eventual return, to believe he'll want to marry her, to save her mother from shame, to fool Panisse, to give her child a name. In scenes dramatizing Fanny's honesty, she talks to her mother, then Panisse, César, and later Marius, and she makes her choices.

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Plot Keywords:

character name as title | pregnant bride | marseille | marseille provence | one word title | 

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Taglines:

Marcel Pagnol's Most Distinguished Masterpiece

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

12 February 1948 (USA)

Also Known As:

Фанни

Filming Locations:

Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$7,720, 8 January 2017

Gross USA:

$8,262

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$8,262

Company Credits

Production Co:

Les Films Marcel Pagnol, Les Établissements Braunberger-Richebé

Technical Specs

Runtime:

140 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film underwent a restoration in 2015, through the Compagnie Méditerranéenne de Film and the Cinémathèque Française, with the support of the CNC, the Franco-American Cultural Fund, TV channel Arte and The Audiovisual Archives of the Principality of Monaco.

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Connections

Version of Fanny (1959)

User Reviews

Feels like a filmed stage play

I have just finished watching Proof, a film released in the year of our Lord, 2005, which is adapted from a stage play in which the director has gone to great pains to hide the fact that his work is based on the play. flash back 70 years and we have a movie made that looks like a filmed stage play with real locations replacing the stage sets. All early sound movies feel set-locked as people talk and deliver within the range of the camera. Therefore, to hold the interest to the modern viewer, the dialogue and acting must be believable and engaging. The film fails to achieve it for the most part because the performance of the actress playing Fanny is a total success even though she was reprising her role from the stage. First time director, Pagnol adapting his own stage works suffers from a non-visual eye. The delight, is French star Raimu who delivers a performance still worthy to the eye even today. There is a reason Orson Welles called him a genius. The melodramatic plot of a scorned, (maybe that is too strong a word: even abandoned is too strong because she never lets on to her man that she does not want him to leave) woman who is pregnant is passé though common in the literature of the period. I remember a tracking shot that impressed me as the camera follows Fanny through the streets as she suspects she is pregnant. In the way it is handled and executed, it is cinematic authorship at its finest. It is a film in the middle of the trilogy, therefore there are loose ends left to be resolved. All movies are time capsules, it is said, therefore approach this with the right attitude and you might be rewarded.