Film Review | Boudu Saved from Drowning (DVD)

If you’ve ever seen the excellent Nick Nolte vehicle Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), you will be very familiar with the plot of Renoir’s 1932 masterpiece Boudu Saved from Drowning (called Boudu Sauvé des Eaux in French), from which it drew its inspiration.
Now the original film has been remastered and spruced up for a long-awaiting DVD release. It’s a must-see classic of French cinema.

It tells the story of Boudu, a vagrant who throws himself into the Seine only to be hauled out by Lestingois, a well-to-do Parisian bookseller. He befriends the tramp and puts him up at his home, where the coarse and irreverent scruff soon causes chaos. After a serious makeover, Boudu soon works his charm on the household maid, who also happens to be Lestingois’ mistress.

One interesting titbit about the remastered film is that the scenes in which Boudu spits on a book by Balzac and jeers at a picture of a uniformed soldier have been restored. It’s thought that they were originally removed by the Paris Chief of Police, who said such scenes could have “disturbed the peace”.

Such a furore may seem a little quaint now but make no mistake, this is a brilliant satire about liberalism centred around a mesmerising performance by Michel Simon as the horny hobo.

Monday, March, 14th at 11.15 by Katharine Barrau