Le Mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans (1927)
Directed by Julien Duvivier

Film Review

In the early part of Julien Duvivier's filmmaking career, Le Mariage de mademoiselle Beulemans is fairly unique - the only pure comedy he lent his talents to during a prolific decade in which he seemed to be far more concerned with systematically working his way through every genre and style of film than settling down into his own particular niche.  Duvivier flirted with humour in a few of his early films - most notably Le Mystère de la Tour Eiffel (1928) - but it wasn't until the 1950s that he showed any particular aptitude for comedy.  Indeed it was in the domain of mainstream comedy that the director had some of his biggest commercial successes - his Fernandel collaborations Le Petit monde de Don Camillo (1952), Le Retour de don Camillo (1953) and L'Homme à l'imperméable (1957).  For the most part, however, comedy occupies an almost insignificant part of Duvivier's oeuvre, which is dominated by his sombre dramas that were more in tune with his generally pessimistic view of human nature.

Le Mariage de mademoiselle Beulemans is so unlike a Julien Duvivier film that you could easily swear that it was helmed by any other French director of the period apart from Duvivier.  Having the same satirical punch and feisty exuberance as Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (1928), the film has much more in common with the work of the director's more versatile (and at the time far more highly regarded) rival René Clair.  In a decade in which Duvivier's interests ranged from conventional melodrama and criminal intrigue to realist drama and religious subjects, Le Mariage de mademoiselle Beulemans is a glaring outlier, and on this basis you might expect it to be a far lesser work.  In fact, of the silent films that Duvivier made, this is one of his most consistently entertaining and technically accomplished - a delightful comedy of manners that has aged far better than most of his other 1920s screen offerings.

This was the second film that Duvivier directed for the successful producers Marcel Vandal and Charles Delac, who had taken over the running of the illustrious production company Film d'Art in 1911.  Over the course of nine years, the director made eleven films for Vandal and Delac, including his first major box office hit, David Golder (1930) and a well-regarded Georges Simenon adaptation, La Tête d'un homme (1933).  It was through this remarkably fruitful association that Duvivier came to such high prominence in the early 1930s.

Le Mariage de mademoiselle Beulemans was based on an enormously popular stage play of the same title from the Belgian playwrights Jean-François Fonson and Fernand Wicheler.  From its first production at the Théâtre de l'Olympia in Brussels in March 1920, the play was a smash hit and was frequently staged in both Belgium and France for many years to come.  Indeed, it remains popular to this day and is considered an important part of Belgian culture.  Marcel Pagnol claimed that he was inspired by the play to write his famous Marseille Trilogy, a series of three plays which he subsequently adapted for the cinema in the 1930s, thereby launching his own impressive career as a filmmaker.  After Duvivier, the play had two other big screen adaptations - one by Jean Choux in 1932, another by André Cerf in 1950.  It has also been adapted for television many times.

Duvivier's film version of Le Mariage de mademoiselle Beulemans is unquestionably the best so far, and this is down mainly to the quality of the cast, with an ensemble expertly chosen to derive the maximum comic impact from the familiar source material.  As the rival brewers, Gustave Libeau and Marcel Barencey give most entertainment value - two supposedly unassailable pillars of society prone to schoolboy tantrums when the slightest thing offends them.  The monumental snobbery of both characters provides a rich vein of humour, particularly as both men are nothing but jumped up fools with far too high an opinion of themselves.  Meulemeester's nouveau riche posturing is bad enough, but more humour is to be found in Beulemans' obvious lack of refinement and education, evidenced by his unfortunate habit of taking everything too literally and his tragic susceptibility to malapropism.

As Beulemans' well-meaning daughter Suzanne, Andrée Brabant shows no less comedic flair in her attempts to build bridges between the various warring factions that keep springing up in the course of the narrative.  Most hilarious is the scene in which she is caught between her bickering parents, looking like a beleaguered referee as the camera whip-pans back and forth between the  Beulemans as they snap at each other like battling rottweilers.  The slanging match ends with Monsieur Beulemans going off in a huff, his intention being to spend the rest of his days in quiet contemplation on the top of a mountain like a monk.  Mountains being in somewhat short supply in Brussels, the brewer has to settle for the next best thing - a cramped sanctuary on top of a huge stack of beer barrels.

Jean Dehelly has the genial face and persona that would be a credit to any Hollywood musical comedy of the 1930s, and so his amiable presence as Suzanne's Parisian beau - the only male character in the film who is not an overt grotesque or comicbook caricature - is welcome.  René Lefèvre, the one member of the cast to achieve greater success in cinema after the transition to sound (Le Million, Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, Gueule d'amour), is clearly wasted in the role of Séraphím, the archetypal cad who undergoes a not terribly convincing conversion to decency once the responsibilities of fatherhood have sunk in.  Lefèvre has too inoffensive a personality ever to cut any mustard as the stereotypical bounder - even with the help of comical facial adornments on his upper lip.

Given the subject matter, Julien Duvivier could have been forgiven for sticking to the cinematic norms of the day, avoiding the stylistic flourishes and optical trickery he frequently indulged in on his earlier silent films.  For the most part, Le Mariage de mademoiselle Beulemans plays as a conventional film farce, although it has a few scenes where the influence of the avant-garde is felt - albeit far less noticeably than on other films by Duvivier from this period.  A good example of this is the pipe-smoking competition sequence, which is notable not only for being the most surreal part of the film, but also the most imaginatively directed.  With his carefully crafted set-ups,  camera movement and some slick editing, Duvivier derives as much tension, suspense and humour as he can from what is clearly the most absurd exhibition of male vanity imaginable.

Duvivier's penchant for superimposition shows up periodically, most visibly in the lengthy introduction where filmed inserts of various famous Belgian landmarks are placed within the turning pages of a book.  The film ends on a high note with the kind of farcical set-piece you would expect of René Clair or Billy Wilder - two wedding processions suddenly colliding, leading to an inevitable grouchy punch-up and all-smiles reconciliation.  Le Mariage de mademoiselle Beulemans shows us what an exemplary comedy director Julien Duvivier could well have been, had he shown a preference for this kind of cinema.  Instead, he preferred the much darker path that would lead to his poetic realist masterpieces - La Belle équipe (1936) and Pépé-le-Moko (1937) - films where humour gives way to the grimmest of irony and only the wriest of smiles dare venture onto our lips.

Film Synopsis

In Brussels, Ferdinand Beulemans is the proud owner of one of the city's leading breweries.  He has high hopes of being elected Honorary President of the Brewers' Society, his only serious rival being Monsieur Meulemeester whose son Séraphím is promised in marriage to the Beulemans' beautiful daughter Suzanne.  Whilst Suzanne has no deep feelings for her future husband, she agrees to the marriage out of a sense of duty to her parents, not knowing that Séraphím's sole motive for wedding her is the generous dowry offered by her father.  Things become complicated upon the arrival of Albert Delpierre, an ambitious young man from Paris who hopes to learn the brewing business from Meulemeester.  It isn't long before Albert takes a liking to Suzanne, but whilst she appears unmoved by his declarations of love, she soon develops a fondness for him.  If only she wasn't already promised to another man!

Then comes the shocking revelation that Séraphím has had a secret love affair with another woman, resulting in the birth of a baby boy.  Because the woman belongs to a social class way beneath Séraphím there was never any prospect of his marrying her.  Visiting the wronged woman and her adorable infant, Suzanne takes it upon herself to persuade Séraphím to do the honourable thing and marry his former sweetheart.  Released from her engagement, Suzanne is now free to marry the man she truly loves - Albert.  But how can Albert gain his future father-in-law's approval?  An opportunity presents itself when he is able to speak in Beulemans's favour at a meeting to elect the next Honorary President of the Brewers' Society.  Alas, the rift between Beulemans and Meulemeester now appears to be permanent - until the happy day when the wedding processions for the two happy couples run into each other.  Amid the joyful reunion, the two rival brewers appear happily reconciled.