L'Armoire volante (1948)
Directed by Carlo Rim

Film Review

Fernandel may be one of the best-loved figures in French cinema but even his most ardent admirers have to admit that the majority of his films are mediocre - shallow vehicles to showcase their star performer, of limited appeal to general film enthusiasts.  A few of Fernandel's films, however, stand out and are not only superlative examples of French cinema, but also show the horse-faced comic actor at his best.  L'Armoire volante is one such film - an inspired black comedy which is almost the perfect antithesis of a typical Fernandel offering.

The film was directed by Carlo Rim, an established screenwriter who had only made one previous film, Simplet (1942), which he co-directed with Fernandel.  Rim was more prolific as a screenwriter and directed only seven subsequent films, the most interesting being La Maison Bonnadieu (1951) and Virgile (1953).  Somehow, Rim managed to persuade his star that the film would only work if he played his character dead straight - and he was right.  It is Fernandel's restrained performance which makes L'Armoire volante so engaging and so irresistibly funny.  The situation Fernandel's character finds himself in is enough to make us laugh, and it is a treat to see the actor playing against the comedy instead of (as is more usually the case) over-hyping it for all it is worth.

L'Armoire volante isn't just one of Fernandel's best films, it is also one of only a handful of his films that can legitimately be described a film d'auteur.  Nicolas Hayer's creepily atmospheric photography and Georges Van Parys's eerie music both brilliantly underscore the macabre and humorous elements of the plot.  Add to that some wonderful surreal touches and the result is unlike anything that Fernandel had ever appeared in up until this time.  Unfortunately, black comedy was not something that French cinema audiences of the period appreciated and the film was not a great success.  Since then, however, the film's appeal has grown and it has aged far better than most of Fernandel's films.  It may not be quite in the same league as that other classic black comedy which involves a corpse in a piece of furniture, Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), but it comes pretty close.

Film Synopsis

Alfred Pic, a hardworking tax inspector, finds himself in a pickle when his bossy aunt, Madame Lobligeois, goes missing in the most bizarre circumstances.  It begins one cold winter's morning when the indomitable old woman sets off for Clermont-Ferrand to collect some furniture.  In the course of the gruelling road journey, Madame Lobligeois dies from the cold, just as her nephew had feared.  The deliverymen have no choice but to put the body of the old woman into a wardrobe in the back of their lorry and resume their errand.  Things go from bad to worse when the lorry is stolen before the furniture and the corpse can be delivered.  Alfred isn't too concerned by the mysterious disappearance of his unloved relative, until his notary tells him that he cannot inherit her estate until her body has been discovered.

If Madame Lobligeois was the bane of Alfred's life when she was living, she is about to become ten times more so now that she is dead.  Without delay, the tax inspector sets out to find the stolen lorry and soon discovers that it was bought by a young couple.  To pay their debts, the latter were obliged to sell the lorry's contents to a suspicious looking hotelier named Martinet.  Believing that his inheritance is finally within his grasp, Alfred pays a visit to Martinet's hotel and starts making a search of all of the wardrobes.  In one of these he is rewarded by the discovery of a dead body.  Alas, it is not his aunt but a man - a gangster!  It seems that the wardrobe containing Madame Lobligeois has gone off on its travels again.  In his increasingly desperate pursuit of the errant piece of furniture, Alfred has cause to wonder if his quest will ever end.  When it does, he is in for a very nasty surprise...