LE CORNIAUD

Le Corniaud is a film Franco-italo-Spanish realized by Gerard Oury, release in 1965.

♦ Synopsis :

Whereas it still traversed only a few tens of meters on the way of Italy where it wished to spend its holidays, 2 CV of Antoine Maréchal dislocates itself when it is struck by Bentley of Mr Saroyan, a so-called director of a house of import-export. Initially of bad faith, Saroyan recognizes its wrongs and, like compensation, offers to Maréchal the voyage Paris-Naples in Caravel, then to convoy all paid expenses, until Bordeaux, from where it will be sent back to Miami, superb and immense Cadillac convertible left over there by one of his American friends. Here are which promises formidable holidays for Maréchal. However this one does not suspect then that Saroyan is the godfather of a trade union of gangsters and who uses it like "mule" to convoy this "road steamer" stuffed in fact of smuggled goods : "Chnouff" (heroin), invaluable stones (of which the "You koun-koun", the largest diamond of the world), but, etc… Here thus the poor Marshal soon on the roads of Italy, being unaware of its invaluable cargo very and not noticing that the criminal follows it remotely to take care on the goods, which it also are coveted by a rival band…

♦ Specification sheet :

  • Title : Le Corniaud
  • Realization : Gérard Oury
  • Scenario : Gérard Oury
  • Adaptation : Gérard Oury, Marcel Jullian
  • Dialogue : André Tabet and Georges Tabet
  • Production assistants : Serge Vallin, Giorgio Stegani, Gérard Guérin
  • Production : Les Films Corona, Valoria Films (Paris) and Explorer Film (Rome)
  • Directeur de production : Yves Laplanche, Enzo Provenzale, Jacques Juranville and Vladimir Ivanov for the second team
  • Leader of production : Robert Dorfmann
  • Producer's assistant : Francesco Ciarletta, Robert Giordani
  • Music : Georges Delerue (Editions Hortensia)
  • Photography : Henri Decaë and Wladimir Ivanov and Alain Douarinou for the second team
  • Editing : Albert Jurgenson, Laurence Leininger, Etiennette Muse
  • Sound : Antoine Bonfanti
  • Suits : Tanine Autré
  • Decorations : Francesco Carletta and Robert Giordani
  • Script-girl : Lucile Costa
  • Credits : Jean Fouchet
  • Special effect : Pierre Durin, Michel Durin, Claude Carliez, Gil Delamare
  • General manager : Jean Pieuchot, Roberto Cocco, Gaëtano Amata
  • Film 35mm, color Eastmancolor, Franscope
  • Edition : Laboratory Franay - L.T.C Saint-Cloud
  • Agent of press : Richard Balducci
  • Italian consultant : Stéfania Giani
  • Photographer of tray : Rodrigue
  • Shooting from August 31st till December 7th, 1964 in Rome, Naples, Carcassonne, Côte d'Azur, La villa d'Este, Pise, Toscane, Paris
  • Duration : 110 minutes
  • Date exit : March 24th, 1965 (France)
  • Genre : Comedy
  • Visa of exploitation : 29466

 

♦ Distribution :

  • Bourvil : Antoine Maréchal, sales representative on holidays
  • Louis de Funès : Léopold Saroyan, « director of export »
  • Venantino Venantini : Mickey, the gangster stammerer
  • Henri Génès : Martial, the gendarme of Carcassonne
  • Jean Droze : A man of Saroyan
  • Jacques Ferrière : A man of Saroyan
  • Beba Loncar : Ursula, the naturist hitch-hiker
  • Saro Urzì : Tagliella, the neapolitan garage owner
  • Alida Chelli : Gina, the manicurist
  • Lando Buzzanca : Nino, the loving hairdresser of Gina
  • Jack Ary : The customs officer-leader
  • Pierre Roussel : Mario Costa, the butler
  • Germaine De France : The old lady who sings
  • Guy Grosso : A customs officer
  • Michel Modo : A customs officer
  • Jean Meyer : An accomplice of Saroyan
  • Henri Virlojeux : An accomplice of Saroyan
  • Jacques Eyser : An accomplice of Saroyan
  • Jean-Marie Bon : The garage owner of Rome
  • Guy Delorme : Luigi, the hired man of Mickey
  • Yvon Jeanclaude : The policeman
  • Bob Lerick : Loulou, the hired man of Mickey
  • Jean Minisini : The inspector
  • Robert Duranton : The " big sturdy man " of showers
  • Marius Gaidon : An agent of Bordeaux
  • Michèle Morgan : Appears in his own role, by car, in a scene which was cut in the editing
  • Eric Wasberg : An inspector
  • Louis Viret
  • Bernard Meunier
  • Nino Vingelli
  • Walter Chiari
  • Nicole Desailly : The manager of the coffee in Carcassonne
  • Daniela Rocca
  • Dan Vadis

♦ Comments :

Le Corniaud is one road movie comic, an amusing voyage in Italy who leads the protagonists of Paris with Rome, Naples, Pisa, Riviera, City of Carcassonne and Bordeaux, while passing by splendid sites like Villa of Este, castle Saint-Angel and Tuscany. Far from the comedies "carried out with the economy", the film entirely made in outside profits from exceptional enough conditions for a French comic film of this time: an important budget, the color, the direct sound and fifteen weeks of turning. Even if the two principal actors have few common scenes, their employment is complementary: Bourvil plays the nitwit, the naive one moving who carries out an extraordinary tour innocently and plays the pretty heart, while De Funès incarnates the bad faith "assembled on spring" seeking to exploit its assistant, a coleric and feverish gang leader which sees all its dishonest persons plans breaking down way progressively.

♦ Quotations :

  • Leopold Saroyan (De Funès) has just annihilated 2 CV of Antoine Maréchal (Bourvil)

- It is not grave ...
- It is not grave ! You have it of maids ! What I am going to become I ?
- Well... pedestrian !

  • Always about his completely destroyed car : (See "Around the film")

- Ah she is going to walk much less well necessarily !

  • Leopold Saroyan (De Funès) by the telephone with the German hitch-hiker :

- Ich bin ein freund, a friend, ein freund of herr Antoine Maréchal ! He ist in danger... Verstehen sie danger ? [...] If you nicht interveniren, Maréchal Kaput !
- Das ist gar nicht möglich !
- That I cannot say to you ! Because der mann, der handsome boy, ach !! ist ein salopard, ein grosser salopard ... who wants to filch... beg your forgiveness... volieren the Cadillac... Here is, thank you... (he hangs up) No, I believe not that she has capito !

 

♦ Around the film :

  • After the projection of rushes from the first two weeks of turning, De Funès finding that it was not present enough at the screen will strike "of the mask" during close 24 hours. Oury imagines then celebrates it scene of shower, where the actor compares his musculature with that of a "large balèze", the ex-all-in wrestler Robert Duranton. The idea is inspired to him by an astonishing meeting made at the time of a voyage in Italy " .. I had met with Capri a strange couple, him : a homo American skinny fellow, ridaillé but billionaire, she : a colossal French kid body-builder! The physical opposition between these two beings exceeded the limits of the buffoonery ".
  • The adventure of La grande Vadrouille start… on the turning of Le Corniaud where Gerard Oury tells with the two actors the scenario of film to come.
  • The 2CV was equipped with 250 electric bolts so that it is dislocated at the desired time. This scene, the last round on December 7, 1964, was perhaps inspired in Oury by its cinematographic "meeting" with Bourvil on the turning of Mirror with two faces. In this dramatic film of Andre Cayatte realized in 1958, Bourvil at the wheel of its 2CV is struck by Gerard Oury, actor but also Co-scenario writer of film, at the wheel of an American gross.
  • When Bourvil/Marshal known as "it will go much less better, inevitably", just after the accident of the 2CV, one sees De Funès being turned over to laugh. This counterpart was not envisaged and this scene would have been rejouable with difficulty, which would have being the case if De Funès had not had the presence of mind to be turned over before laughing. It is also noticed that at the time when the 2CV of Bourvil is dislocated, this last draws several times on the wheel so that it is taken down of its axis and thus ensured the gag and especially continuity from the scene.
  • The scenario of the Corniaud takes as a starting point the the mishap of a presenter of French television, Jacques Angelvin, which was stopped in the United States in 1962 at the wheel of one Buick coming from France and in which more than fifty kilogrammes of pure heroin had been dissimulated. During its arrest, the car did not contain any more drug and Angelvin protested initially its innocence while claiming to be deceived, in a way similar to the hero of Corniaud. It was however proven that the car of the French had been well used to transport drug since Marseilles until The United States and that it had touched ten thousand dollars for that. Pleading guilty at the time of its lawsuit, the presenter of Paris-club was imprisoned during five years. This arrest is one of the episodes of the dismantling of "French connection" which inspired films of the same name (French Connection and French Connection 2).
  • The seal of Bourvil for this film is three times more important than that granted De Funès..
  • Cadillac led by Bourvil is a model ElDorado 1964.
  • N°1 with boxoffice in 1965 : 11,74 million entries.
  • At the time of Festival of Cannes 1965, Oury and its producer see themselves proposing by American to carry out and produce one remake with Dean Martin and Lemmon jack. In spite of an important offer ("Doubled Budget, wages paid in Switzerland, promises of two other films in the five years. Enormous"), French will not take action pursuant.

♦ Distinctions :

  • Price of the best scenario of the Festival of Moscow 1965.

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