''Boudu Saved from Drowning'' (french: Boudu sauvé des eaux, "Boudu saved from the waters") is a 1932

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

comedy of manners In English literature, the term comedy of manners (also anti-sentimental comedy) describes a genre of realistic, satirical comedy of the Restoration period (1660–1710) that questions and comments upon the manners and social conventions of a gr ...

film directed by

Jean Renoir Jean Renoir (; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. His films '' ...

. Renoir wrote the film's screenplay, from the 1919 play by René Fauchois. The film stars

Michel Simon Michel Simon (; 9 April 1895 – 30 May 1975) was a Swiss-French actor. He appeared in many notable French films, including ''La Chienne'' (1931), ''Boudu Saved from Drowning'' (1932), ''L'Atalante'' (1934), ''Port of Shadows'' (1938), '' The He ...

as Boudu.

Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...

called it, "not only a lovely fable about a bourgeois attempt to reform an early hippie... but a photographic record of an earlier France."

Synopsis

Bourgeois

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

ian and

Latin Quarter The Latin Quarter of Paris (french: Quartier latin, ) is an area in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne. Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistro ...

bookseller Edouard Lestingois rescues Boudu, a tramp, from a suicidal plunge into the

River Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributari ...

from the Pont des Arts. Boudu is brought into Lestingois's household. The family adopts the man and dedicates itself to reforming him into a proper, middle-class person. Boudu shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations, challenging the hidebound manners of his hosts, seducing the housemaid and raping Madame Lestingois. Gradually Boudu is tamed, shaved and given a haircut, and put in a suit. Then he wins a large sum of money on the lottery, and he is guided into marrying the housemaid. Finally, however, at the wedding scene, Boudu capsizes a rowboat and floats away from the wedding party, and "back to his old vagrancy, a free spirit once more."

Cast

as Priape Boudu *

Charles Granval Charles Granval (born Charles Louis Gribouval; December 21, 1882 – July 28, 1943) was a French stage and film actor.Macdonald p.244 He was Jean-Pierre Granval's father. Selected filmography * ''Golgotha'' (1935) * '' La belle équipe'' (1936) ...

as Edouard Lestingois *

Marcelle Hainia Marcelle Hainia (1896–1968) was a French stage and film actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such ...

as Emma Lestingois * Sévérine Lerczinska as Chloe Anne Marie, la bonne *

Jean Gehret Jean Gehret (January 10, 1900, Geneva, Switzerland - May 24, 1956, Paris, France) was an actor and director, appearing in a few films directed by Jean Renoir, including La Chienne (1931) and Madame Bovary ''Madame Bovary'' (; ), originally pub ...

as Vigour *

Max Dalban Max Dalban (27 May 1908 – 9 February 1958) was a French film actor.Macdonald p.244 Selected filmography * '' Boudu Saved from Drowning'' (1932) * ''Chotard and Company'' (1933) * ''Street Without a Name'' (1934) * ''Toni'' (1935) * ''The Alib ...

as Godin *

Jean Dasté Jean Dasté, born Jean Georges Gustave Dasté, (18 September 1904 in Paris, France – 15 October 1994 in Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, Loire, France)Jacques Becker Jacques Becker (; 15 September 1906 – 21 February 1960) was a French film director and screenwriter. His films, made during the 1940s and 1950s, encompassed a wide variety of genres, and they were admired by some of the filmmakers who led th ...

as Poet on park bench

Notes

Renoir changed the ending of René Fauchois's play. The play ends with the marriage of Boudu and Anne-Marie, whereas in Renoir's film, Boudu escapes 'from holy padlock' and heads for ' a future of independent, vagrant liberty.' Initially angry, according to Renoir, Fauchois threatened to have his name removed from the credits, but later changed his mind, and (in ''Cinéma'' 56, no.7, November 1955) said: "I have just seen the film again and I admired it and am happy to say so. As a very free adaptation of my work, ''Boudu'' belongs to Renoir." (Fauchois's career started as an actor with the Sarah-Bernhardt company, and in 1925 when Michel Simon played Boudu on the stage Fauchois was Lestingois.) In narrative terms, another major change by Renoir from the play, consists in shifting the centre of attention from the character of Lestingois to that of Boudu. Michel Simon was at various times, a boxer, a boxing instructor, a right-wing anarchist, a frequenter of prostitutes, pimps and petty crooks. He was extremely well read, a talented photographer, a hypochondriac, a misanthrope, owner of a vast collection of pornography and with a reputation for unorthodox sexual behaviour which he did not bother to deny. The writer Richard Boston has stated that, "Whether or not he was a pleasant man, he was certainly a complex one, with a good deal of Boudu in him," and Renoir called Simon "a genius of an actor...''Boudu'' was conceived primarily to make use of the genius of Michel Simon." Michel Simon called Boudu a ''pique-assiette'', a sponger, while the writer

Richard Boston Richard Boston (29 December 1938 – 22 December 2006) was an English journalist and author, a rigorous dissenter and a belligerent pacifist. An anarchist, toper, raconteur, marathon runner and practical joker, he described his pastimes as "s ...

rejected the idea that Boudu had much in common with the

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

of the late 1960s, as

had suggested. "The ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...

'' says that hippie is a hipster; a person usually exotically dressed; a

beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the under ...

. None of this sounds remotely like Boudu. Boudu doesn't reject conventional values: he never had them in the first place: you wouldn't catch him doing anything as pussy-footing as 'rejecting conventional values.' " Rather, Boston argues, Boudu is what the French call a ''marginal''. Boudu is anarchic, chaotic, and finally, a fool. An

archetype The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ...

, "these agents of chaos act out our secret desires. If ''we'' see a big bum we might want to kick it: Chaplin ''does'' kick it...

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957). Starting their career as a duo in t ...

, the

Marx Brothers The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...

, Boudu, and Hulot are the enemies of conformity, of what can be regulated. They are the awkward squad."

Remake

The film was remade for an American audience as '' Down and Out in Beverly Hills'' (1986), directed by

Paul Mazursky Irwin Lawrence "Paul" Mazursky (April 25, 1930 – June 30, 2014) was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. Known for his dramatic comedies that often dealt with modern social issues, he was nominated for five Academy Awards: three ...

. For another remake, '' Boudu'' (2005). Gérard Jugnot directed, from a screenplay by Philippe Lopes-Curval. It starred

Gérard Depardieu Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu, CQ (, , ; born 27 December 1948) is a French actor, filmmaker, businessman and vineyard owner since 1989 who is one of the most prolific thespians in film history having completed over 250 films since 1967 al ...

as Boudu.

References

External links

* * *
''Boudu Saved from Drowning: Tramping in the City''
an essay by Christopher Faulkner at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...