Un troisieme element evoque par Alice Kaplan, qui inspire egalement Camus, est le film [beaucoup moins que] Le Schpountz [beaucoup plus grand que] de Visconti, interprete par
Fernandel. C'est ce film dit-elle qui donne l'intrigue principale de [beaucoup moins que] L'etranger [beaucoup plus grand que].
Donc c'est comme si on s'attendait a recevoir une education tres bonne >> (
Fernandel).
Jacques Becker y a tourne son Ali Baba (1954) avec
Fernandel. Le cineaste francais Andre Techine m'a raconte une fois qu'il aime venir y ecrire.
When the court hears about how he smoked a cigarette in front of his mother's coffin, or how he went to a
Fernandel comedy at the movies the next day, the judges conclude that he must be a monster.
Over the decades, the Eden became both a cinema and theater, and several French film stars such as Yves Montand and
Fernandel performed there in the early days of their careers.
Merad is convincing in a role originated by
Fernandel, and rest of the cast is on the money, though Azema strikes a rare false note as Jacques' hysterical, one-dimensional mother.
And it must have been in one of the columns I missed that there appeared a phrase quoted in the Correio da Manha, (1) among phrases of Robert Kennedy,
Fernandel, Arthur Schlesinger, Geraldine Chaplin, Tristao de Athayde, and several others, and that was read to me over the telephone.
Unlike the well-known traditions of Italian "spaghetti" westerns or East German Indianerfilme, not to mention prodigious Hollywood production, the French contribution to the genre in living memory would seem limited to the odd occasional film: a
Fernandel farce, a Brigitte Bardot vehicle, the Lucky Luke franchise.
Without advertising breaks, they would resort to films which no longer have any market value such as
Fernandel or the first De Funes.