Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: the adaptation of the short story “Le Passe-muraille” by Marcel Aymé by Jean Boyer.
From his real name André Raimbourg, Bourvil – in reference to the Norman village Bourville, where he grew up – quickly became passionate about singing. After having scoured the radio hooks and the cabarets of Paris, he made a name for himself in the cinema in 1945 in La Ferme du pendu by Jean Dréville, thanks to his bland interpretation of the song “Les Crayons”.
Very quickly, Bourvil finds himself confined to the skin of characters who are distinguished by their kindness, their bonhomie, even their naivety. This is particularly the case in 1951 in Le Passe-muraille, an adaptation of the eponymous short story by Marcel Aymé co-written by the young screenwriter Michel Audiard and the filmmaker Jean Boyer.
In this fantastic comedy, the actor lends his features to Léon Dutilleul, a minor civil servant exploited by his hierarchy, who discovers the power to pass through walls. On the advice of his friend Gen-Paul (played by Raymond Souplex), he uses it first to take revenge on his executioners, then to put the woman he fell in love back on the right track, who turns out to be being an accomplice to burglaries. Alternately tender and funny, Bourvil seduces the French public, bringing together 2.5 million spectators in theaters.
During his career, Bourvil would reunite with Jean Boyer on three other occasions (for the remake Le rosier de Madame Husson, Le trou normand and Cent francs per second) and play two other protagonists drawn from the works of Marcel Aymé (La Traversée de Paris and La Jument verte) under the direction of Claude Autant-Lara.
Le Passe-muraille by Jean Boyer with Bourvil, Joan Greenwood, Marcelle Arnold…
Tonight on C8 at 9:10 p.m.