Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: a French film with unexpected success when it was released in 1963.
Initially a film and theater actor, Jean-Pierre Mocky turned to directing at the end of the 1950s. If Les Dragueurs, his first feature film, attracted more than a million spectators in theaters, his following projects are a series of disappointments.
It was not until 1963 that the budding filmmaker reconnected with a large audience, adapting the novel to the big screen. Deo gratias by Michel Servin, published a year earlier.
Renamed A Funny Parishioner, the film tells the story of Georges Lachaunaye. A penniless aristocrat refusing to work, he begs God to entrust him with the solution to his problem. And it seems to be by looting the trunks of the church…
Plunging the viewer into a fanciful universe, Jean-Pierre Mocky thus openly mocks the bourgeoisie, the Church and the police, announcing what will be his trademark: anarchist convictions conveyed through popular entertainment.
A sassy comedy, A Funny Parishioner is nevertheless full of tenderness towards its wacky characters. Starting with the fake naive, embodied by a honeyed Bourvil at will. The latter thus joins the small troop of regulars of the director, of which Francis Blanche and Jean Poiret are already part, with whom he will collaborate on three other occasions.
Placed in the top 3 of the national box office for six consecutive weeks, A funny parishioner accounts for a total of 2.3 million admissions. A considerable and unexpected success which also postpones by several weeks the release of the ambitious American production Hôtel International with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, despite having come specially to promote it in Paris.
With an average viewer rating of 4/5, A Funny Parishioner is the favorite feature film of AlloCiné internet users among Jean-Pierre Mocky’s filmography as a director.
A strange parishioner by Jean-Pierre Mocky with Bourvil, Jean Poiret, Francis Blanche…
Tonight on Arte at 8:50 p.m.