The Wild Oat

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.