Topaze (1951)
Topaze (1951)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 4:3 | 720x576 | 6600 kbps | 6.8Gb
Audio: French AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: English, German, Spanish, Arab, Japanese, Chinese, French
02:15:00 | France | Comedy
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 4:3 | 720x576 | 6600 kbps | 6.8Gb
Audio: French AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: English, German, Spanish, Arab, Japanese, Chinese, French
02:15:00 | France | Comedy
Albert Topaze, sincere schoolteacher addicted to "rote" morality, works at a private school run by supremely money-grubbing M. Muche, whose daughter, also a teacher, makes cynical use of the knowledge that Topaze loves her. Alas, Topaze's naive honesty brings him unjust dismissal…and makes him fair game for the "aunt" of his private pupil, really the mistress of crooked politician Regis, who needs an honest-seeming "front man." Can artful Suzy Courtois keep Topaze on the string? With steadily escalating disillusion comes moral crisis…
Director: Marcel Pagnol
Cast: Fernandel, Helene Perdriere, Jacqueline Pagnol, Marcel Vallee, Jacques Castelot, Milly Mathis, Yvette Etievant, Robert Moor, Rivers Cadet, Marcel Loche, Pierre Larquey, Jacques Morel
Topaze (1951)
IMDb
The setting: a small private school run by a Scrooge-y director. Topaze, a thirty-something teacher, scrupulously honest, who is fond of his job and full of indulgence and devotion for his pupils, is brutally expelled for refusing to cheat by upgrading the bad scores of a rich-family pupil, as demanded by both his mother and the director.
Clueless and still honest through it all, circumstances lead him next to be recruited to "work" - unknowingly - as a front for a corrupted city counselor who uses his position to get all sorts of paybacks. But as Topaze "wisens" up, his view of life, of the values of virtue and the utility of money will evolve in a new direction.
The plot is simple enough, but listen to those dialogs! Topaze seems dumb but is in fact generous and refuses to admit, not being corrupt himself, the mere existence of corruption in the people that surround him. He truly believes in the goodness of man. Events will challenge this belief, as it does for most of us.
This tale rings astonishingly true in the present times. It has not aged a bit. Though at times cynical, it is a deep and touching reflexion on the importance of money, wealth and power, the supremacy of appearances over substance, and the ordeal of those that are deprived of any of those things.
In my opinion, being a Pagnol fan (of both his books and films), this is Marcel Pagnol's most personal opus. It features an extraordinary cast; as in all of Pagnol's movies, event the smallest parts are well-cast. Fernandel is outstanding as he goes from naive to cynical. Perdriere is adorable and smart, and Marcel Vallee plays the part of the school director with verve: watch him closely in the scene where he is with the outraged mother who demands that the "error" in his son's scores is "discovered" and corrected.
If you have a chance to see this, don't miss it.
~ Corvin Ello
Extras:
- Cahier critique
- cahier manuscrits
- Test de restauration
- Fimographies
- Photo gallery
- Bibliographie of Marcel Pagnol
Topaze (1951)
Topaze (1951)
