La femme du boulanger (1938)

Director:

Marcel Pagnol

Writer:

Jean Giono (novel)

Release Date:

26 February 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

In this little Provencal village, a new baker, Aimable, settles down. His wife Aurelie is beautiful and much younger than he...

Plot Keywords:

Bread | Shepherd | Baker | Village | Mayor

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Raimu	...	Aimable Castanier
Ginette Leclerc	...	Aurélie Castanier
Fernand Charpin	...	Le marquis Castan de Venelles (as Charpin)
Robert Vattier	...	Le curé
Charles Blavette	...	Antonin
Robert Bassac	...	L'instituteur
Marcel Maupi	...	Barnabé (as Maupi)
Alida Rouffe	...	Céleste, la bonne du curé
Odette Roger	...	Miette, la femme d'Antonin
Yvette Fournier	...	Hermine
Maximilienne	...	Melle Angèle (as Maximilienne Max)
Charblay	...	Arsène, le boucher
Julien Maffre	...	Pétugue (as Maffre)
Adrien Legros	...	Barthelemy
Jean Castan	...	Esprit, un berger

Also Known As:

The Baker's Wife (USA)

Runtime:

133 min | West Germany:97 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Not Rated | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Le Castellet, Var, France

Company:

Les Films Marcel Pagnol

Trivia:

Marcel Pagnol wrote the part of Aurélie Castanier for Joan Crawford. The American actress declined because she didn't speak French. The part, which has a minimal amount of lines for a title role, went to Ginette Leclerc.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma (1995)

A warm movie.

This is a movie with a very warm and pleasant atmosphere. It has a childish innocence over it, like basically all these typical genre movies from the '30's seem to have.

It's atmosphere, story and characters make this a very pleasant and entertaining movie to watch. It has a very simple concept, in which a French baker's wife run of with a shepherd, after the first night they moved in to a small village, in the middle of the countryside. After this the baker refuses to make bread anymore. The villagers of course want their daily fresh bread so they together come up with a plan to get her back to the bakery. It all sounds very simple but thanks to its fine storytelling from director Marcel Pagnol it all works out real well. There also is of course more to the story, courtesy of some fine input from the movie its characters and actors portraying them.

It's a well cast movie, with French character actor Raimu in the main lead. The other cast members all have some very characteristic look over them, the way only the French can look. I'm not too happy about the casting of Ginette Leclerc though. She is supposed to be a very pretty woman in the movie but just look at the way Leclerc look...she is no natural beauty. Or perhaps her looks just were the idea of a true beauty, in the France of the 1930's.

It takes a while for the movie to pick up its pace and the movie also tends to drag on a bit in its middle part but in the many parts that the movie finds its right pace, the movie is a great one. It's a real enjoyable comedy, that is not the type of comedy that has some hilarious moments that will make you laugh out loud in it but it's more the type of comedy that tries to constantly entertain. It doesn't fail at that, thanks to the movie its very pleasant atmosphere, simplistic story and likable characters. Especially the movie its last halve, in which the villagers start to undertake action, is just great.

A fun and warm little movie.

8/10