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Archimède, le clochard
1959 Drama / Comedy
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Credits
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Director: Gilles Grangier
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Script: Michel Audiard, Jean Gabin, Gilles Grangier, Albert Valentin
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Photo: Louis Page
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Music: Jean Prodromidès
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Cast: Jean Gabin (Joseph Hugues Guillaume Boutier-Blainville
dit Archimède),
Darry Cowl (Arsène),
Bernard Blier (M. Pichon,
le patron du café),
Dora Doll (Mme Pichon),
Paul Frankeur (M. Grégoire,
le premier patron du café),
Gaby Basset (Mme Grégoire),
Sacha Briquet (Jean-Loup,
l'Anglais),
Guy Decomble (Le chef de station de la RATP),
Albert Dinan (Le restaurateur),
Bernard La Jarrige (Un poissonnier),
Pierre Leproux (Un homme sandwich),
Jacqueline Maillan (Mme Marjorie),
Jacques Marin (Mimile),
Paul Mercey (Camille),
Noël Roquevert (Capitaine
Brossard),
Julien Carette (Félix)
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Country: France / Italy
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Language: French
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Runtime: 91 min; B&W
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Aka: The Magnificent Tramp
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Summary
Archimède is a tramp like no other. Contrary to what you might expect, he
enjoys the finer things in life – fine wine, a good meal and a cosy place to put
down his head. Whilst his current home – a room in an apartment block under
development – has served him well during the summer, it will be uncomfortable during
the cold winter ahead. So he has two options: either he gets himself arrested so
he can spend the winter months in jail, or he can go and rough it in the South of France.
He decides on the former option, mainly because the food is more to his palate.
However, smashing up a bar only earns him a week in prison. His sentence served,
he vows to return…
Review
Jean Gabin is on fine comic form in this charming but easily forgettable comedy-drama.
Here he plays the third kind of role for which is best known. After the romantic
hero and the tough patriarch, Gabin’s third screen persona was that of a proud but
loveable past-retirement outsider. Whilst it rarely gave Gabin the opportunity to
show his true talents as an actor, this kind of role, which featured in a number of comedies
in the latter half of his career, was enormously popular with the French public.
In Archimède, le clochard, Gabin
plays an eccentric tramp whose sole aim in life is live as comfortably as possible without
money. Gabin clearly relishes the part and gives one of his most ebullient comic
performances. The scene in which he gatecrashes a snob party and ends up dancing
the Charleston is hilarious. Gabin appears in the film with Darry Cowl, a very popular
comic performer from the late 1950s onwards.
The film was directed by Gilles Grangier,
who worked with Gabin on a dozen films, most of which were commercial successes.
Grangier is not what one might term a great innovator and his films were diametrically
opposed to the spirit of the French New Wave. However, his films had a mass appeal,
usually on the strength of their leading actors (Gabin in particular), but also because
they were generally well scripted – often with some fine tongue-in-cheek comic dialogue
from the well-known screenwriter Michel Audiard).
© James Travers 2004
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