La Traversée de Paris

In 1942, Paris is occupied by the Nazis. Martin (Bourvil), an unemployed taxi driver, is hired by the black marketeer Jambier (Louis de Funès) to carry a slaughtered pig in four suitcases across the city at night. He takes on a stranger, Grandgil (Jean Gabin), as his helper. But Grandgil is in fact a famous painter who joins in purely for the thrill of adventure and gleefully provokes the cowardice and greed of those around him... Claude Autant-Lara’s adaptation of a story by Marcel Aymé is a scathing tragicomedy. Instead of heroic resistance, it shows opportunism, pettiness and class divisions: the artist gets away, while the little man pays the price. Gabin and Bourvil make a brilliant duo, with Bourvil winning the award for Best Actor in Venice for his role. In film history, the film belongs to the “Tradition de la qualité”, whose screenwriters Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost had shortly before been sharply attacked by François Truffaut. With its sarcasm, however, the film shook the post-war myth of the Résistance and anticipated the critical reappraisal of the Occupation in later decades. “A dramatic, at times somewhat ‘black’ comedy that can be seen as a psychological study of the French during the Occupation. The dialogue is precisely crafted, the cinematography and editing effectively support the dense story, and excellent actors give it its unmistakable charm. (East German TV title: ‘Quer durch Paris’) – Worth seeing” (Lexikon des Internationalen Films)