Boudu sauvé des eaux (1932)

Director:

Jean Renoir

Writer:

René Fauchois (play)

Release Date:

23 February 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Boudu, a tramp, jumps into the Seine. He is rescued by Mr Lestingois, a gentle and good bookseller, who gives shelter to him...

Plot Keywords:

Tramp | Paris France | Drowning | Homelessness | Rescue From Drowning

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)

Also Known As:

Boudu Saved from Drowning (USA)

Runtime:

France:85 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1:19 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Tobis-Klangfilm)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Finland:S

Filming Locations:

Berges de la Seine, Paris, France

Company:

Les Établissements Jacques Haïk

Trivia:

The poet on the bench at the beginning is Jacques Becker, assistant director for that movie. He later directed Casque d'or (1952) and other famous movies.

Quotes:

Édouard Lestingois: The man who spits in Balzac's "Physiology of Marriage" is less than nothing to me.
Priape Boudu: Who is that man?
Édouard Lestingois: Ask my wife.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea (2004)

Soundtrack:

Fin

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?