Drôle de drame

There might be like twenty or thirty celebrated French classics that have emerged from the dusty drawers of the pre-war thirties, mostly released in the second half of the decade and belonged to the "poetic realism" genre, classics from such directors as Carné, Divivier and Renoir and carried by actors like Gabin, Jouvet and Arletty. Not that it's a comment on their quality but the number of French comedies from that era that happened to stand the test of time can be counted on the fingers of one hand, even a Disney hand… so only because it's one of a kind, "Bizarre, Bizarre" aka "Drôle de Drame" deserves a more than honorable mention in the Pantheon of French comedy.

The film, directed by Marcel Carné and written by Jacques Prévert, is perhaps the only case of screwball French comedy I could recall, and I'm not surprised that it was adapted from a British novel ("His First Offense" by Joseph Storer Clouston), as there's something of British acerbic wit and sly humor that confined to dark comedy in this amusing, although somewhat confusing little gem. But let's be frank, the film isn't as celebrated as other cinematic involvements from Carné, Prévert or Jouvet, French audience might not be familiar with the title of this film but they'd certainly know what we're talking about if we just utter the words "bizarre, bizarre…", one iconic scene is the reason why this film is famous today, it has on a French ear the same resonance than "On The Waterfront" monologue or Travis Bickle's mirror scene.

It's called the 'Bizarre' scene, just utter to a French person or a French movie lover "Bizarre… Bizarre…" and he'll immediately retort "Did I say Bizarre? How strange?" or "How Bizarre" there are many variants but the point is that this film has immediately screwed itself on Pop-Culture and never deserted it, one simple exchange earned it a ticket to posterity, which was pretty common in these days. Indeed, since the rise of the talkies, no French film could become a real classic without "THE" line to immortalize it. Circa 1937-1938, many movies provided some of the most classic quotes of French cinema, "Port of Shadows" with Jean Gabin telling Michèle Morgan how beautiful her eyes were and in "Hotel du Nord" were Arletty delivered her iconic 'atmosphere' rant, both films were directed by Carné but there are many other great quotes from the same era.

The scene is simple and efficient even when taken out of context, but it works exquisitely better when you know the context. Louis Jouvet is an Anglican Bishop named Soper, he leads a campaign against "unholy" crime fiction writers and had just went into a vehement tirade against an unknown pulp fiction writer named Félix Chopel. Unbeknownst to him (and to the general public), the mysterious Chopel happens to be his cousin, the meek and timid botanist Irwin Molyneux, whose affable nature, awkward tics and mannerisms and teddy-bear like appearance contrast with Jouvet eagle-like sharpened eyes and inquisitive tone. His conference is interrupted by local criminal named Williams Kramps (Jean-Louis Barrault) and known as the butcher-killer (Jean-Louis Barrault), he swears to kill Chopel who inspired his much regretted vocation, Molyneux realizes he might blow his cover by acting too scared, but he is, really.

It gets tricky when Soper literally invites himself to his cousin's house and even trickier when the house has just been emptied of the servants tired of the boring routine, and suddenly only inhabited by Chopel's wife Margaret (Françoise Rosay) and his secretary, Eva (Nadine Vogel), who's enamored with a young and handsome milkman named Billy (Jean-Pierre Aumont) whose real talent is to tell stories. We'll later learn that he's the one who give the ideas to Chopel aka Molyneux with Eva as an intermediary. So there are as many secrets, lies and false identities as seeds planted to grow more confusingly comical situations, and finally blossoming in pure comical hilarity where everything gets even more messier for the sake of laughs, but since nothing really tops the iconic "bizarre" moment so let's get back to that scene.

Chopel doesn't want to show his cousin that they're too poor not to afford servants (there's also a heritage subplot in the film), he pretends his wife is absent, but Soper suspects a disappearance, and everything his cousin said leads to a laconic 'bizarre', It all leads to this situation where a pathetic Michel Simon tries to evade the issue, to "drown the fish", like a French idiom says, but it gets fishier for his cousin who doesn't buy his lies and can tell he's hiding something. He says 'bizarre' in a way that became a staple of suspicion where you know something is strange and can't really put your finger in. It's all in the way the line is delivered a mix of sadness and lucidity, it's just floating in the air like a mood setter, and we know this is only the start of something that will escalate… and it does although the film's blurry look and the profusion of characters make it rather hard to get at a first viewing, a second one would be recommended.

Still, like I said, the film peaks with the 'bizarre' moment, there's something so complementary between the two men's acting that it's unfortunate they didn't share more scenes, I read they didn't get along well, but whatever was the reason, I wish the film would have stuck to the spirit of that single scene, it could have been one of these one-location masterpieces à la "Sleuth" and leading to the same finale without the need of romantic subplots, a little less could have been a lot more. I can watch the "Bizarre" scene over and over again, I can tell the same exactly about the film, that the highlight came so early is rather unfortunate… and of course, bizarre.