The Bread Peddler (1963) User Reviews

Good, Like Bread

[writers_reign · 9 November 2007]

It's always a joy to see Suzanne Flon in anything but when she appears in a film that is good in itself and/or works alongside actors of similar calibre as she does here then we're talking bonus. Although he has something like twenty five films under his directorial belt Maurice Cloche is relatively unknown outside France having failed to capitalize on the internationally well-received adaptation of a Paul Gallico story The Small Miracle/Never Take No For An Answer in the early fifties. Here he takes an old melodramatic war-horse and thanks largely to Flon and co-stars Philippe Noiret and Jean Rochefort gives it a new coat of paint. He also resists the temptation to shoot the Ball scene a' la Ophuls, preferring to keep his camera static and let the waltzers come to him rather than gliding and swooping as Ophuls would have done. The plot - Noiret, caught with his hand in the till, ices the outraged witness and Flon takes the fall but everything ends happily - needn't detain us which means we can wallow in the performances - both male leads somewhat changed, Noiret slimmer though he was never going to be sylph-like and Rochefort almost unrecognizably young - especially Flon who lights up the screen whenever she appears. Not so much a masterpiece or even a minor masterpiece as a minor pleasure.

Love this movie. I need to purchase it.

[madelinedmd · 10/10 · 31 December 2004]

I think that was the best movie ever. I saw it in French in the 70's and enjoyed every second of it. I was a child then but have not been able to get it out of my head lately. I remember an excellent story line, which kept me captivated throughout the entire movie. The actors really got into their characters and kept viewers on the edge of their seats the entire length of the movie. I don't remember exact details, but I remember enough to make me want to add it to my collection of classic foreign language movies. I have been looking to purchase the DVD (or VHS) (in French) online with no success. If anyone knows of a venue, please post it.

How heavy the load is!

[dbdumonteil · 31 October 2007]

The first half of the sixties saw a mini-boom of French old melodramas of the nineteenth century.The most celebrated of them "Les Mysteres de Paris" (someone's reading that book in Cloche's film) was filmed by André Hunebelle in 1962 with poor results;Riccardo Freda tackled D'Ennery's "Les Deux Orphelines" (which was made by Griffith as "Orphans of the storm" in the silent era and remade by Maurice Tourneur in the thirties ) and "Roger la Honte" .

Maurice Cloche took "la Porteuse de Pain" (= bread carrier)-which he had already filmed in 1949-and succeeded measurably well;the loooong novel was simplified with good results.Xavier de Montépin's style is mushy ;the last line of the story -not used ,wisely ,in the movie- is :"I've suffered ,but now,it's paradise!Ah! God is kind!" "La Porteuse de Pain" owes a lot to the cast : Suzane Flon,a very talented thespian was ideally cast as Lise Fortier,an ill-fortunate woman,unfairly charged with murder,sent to jail,separated from her children,you know the score..;Philippe Noiret plays a delightful villain;Jean Rochefort is the mischievous blackmailer cousin.Costumes and settings recreate Paris of the late nineteenth century: the ball scene is particularly successful,as the dancers waltz to the "Blue Danube" or do the quadrille to "Il A Des Bottes Bastien" an old popular song (1876) which began as a honky tonk repetitive ditty and ended up in the bourgeois mansions.

This is not a masterpiece ,but it is a well made melodrama which should appeal to aficionados of the genre.Remade in the seventies as a miniseries starring Martine Sarcey as the carrier with supporting roles by Jacques Villeret and Bernard Giraudeau.