Neither Seen Nor Recognized

In a small French town, the poacher Blaireau and the gamekeeper who guards the woods have been feuding for years. The keeper traps him and gets him jailed. When Blaireau comes out he takes his revenge by setting the town's respectable citizens against each other: the mayor, the lawyer, the countess, all of them walk into his scheme because of their own interests. The film works as provincial satire. The poacher is not the most upright character morally, but he is the only honest one, and the town's respectable class tells one more lie in every scene. Yves Robert directed. The source is Alphonse Allais's novel L'Affaire Blaireau. Louis de Funes has the lead as Leon Blaireau. This is one of the first films to give him top billing; the real stardom came a few years later, and he has not yet settled into the shouting style of the later pictures. Moustache is also in the cast. It opened in April 1958 and did better than expected, passing two million admissions. Who it is for: anyone curious about classic French comedy and early de Funes. Who it is not for: anyone expecting fast comedy. The jokes are verbal, some of them are lost in subtitles, and the plot loosens in the second half.