Le Président Haudecoeur (1940)
Directed by Jean Dréville

Film Review

If Harry Baur is remembered today it is most likely for his dramatic roles, in films such as Un grand amour de Beethoven (1936), Volpone (1940) and L'Assassinat du Père Noël (1941).  Baur was certainly at is best in such roles, leaving little doubt that he was the finest French actor of his generation, but he also had a flair for comedy, as is evident in Le Président Haudecoeur.  This was the second of two films adapted from stage plays by Roger Ferdinand in whch Baur starred, under the direction of Jean Dréville, the first being Un homme en or (1934).  Coming straight after Jacques de Baroncelli's gruelling L'Homme du Niger (1939), this film provided a welcome change for Baur, with its pleasing mélange of rom-com and light melodrama.

Le Président Haudecoeur is of special interest to fans of Harry Baur because this is the only occasion where he appears on screen alongside his son, who is credited here under his stage name Cecil Grane.  Prior to this, Grane had appeared (in a small role) in just one film, Maurice Cloche's Nord-Atlantique (1939), and it's possible that he might have gone on to pursue a successful acting career had fate been kinder to him.  Just after France's entry into WWII in 1940, Grane enlisted in the French Free Forces and rose to the rank of sub-lieutenant in the 1st Spahi Regiment.  His wartime experience and the tragic death of his father (a victim of Gestapo torture) may have been what led him to give up acting.  After the war Grane became an idler and ended his days in Indochina in 1953, ten years after his father's own untimely death.  He was 34 when he died.  His older brother Jacques had died at the age of 20 in 1929.

One of the strengths of Président Haudecoeur is the heartrending authenticity of the father-son relationship as played by Baur and Grane.  Beneath Baur's apparent brutality in his paternalistic dealings with his son there is an unmistakable note of tenderness, and Grane's performance likewise convincingly shows the conflict between filial duty and a young man's desire to live his own life.  Helped along with an instantly likeable persona, Grane shows immense promise as an actor and it is tragic that his departure from French cinema shoud be as abrupt and incomprehensible as his father's.  Watching their final scene together in this film is a poignant experience, all the more so as it reflects on the rarity and transience of happiness.

The film's other key asset is the wonderful Betty Stockfeld.  An Australian by birth, Stockfeld absolutely adored France and, being perfectly bilingual, she was more than happy to divide her time between French and British films from the 1930s onwards.  Had she wanted it, she could have been a Hollywood diva, but she was content with a less glitzy career in Europe.  With her vivacious personality, good looks and sheer elegance, to say nothing of her skill as an actress, she brightened up many a French comedy of the 1930s.  The most memorable scene in Président Haudecoeur is the one in which Stockfeld puts the kibosh on her budding romance with Baur - both actors play the scene with such delicate poignancy that you'd almost swear they had genuinely fallen for each other.

Overall, the film suffers from being slightly too stagy and verbose (such is the folly of allowing a playwright to adapt his own play).  Dréville appears happy to turn in a piece of 'filmed theatre', and the only reason he gets away with it is because the performances are so damned good.  (In addition to Baur, Grane and Stockfeld, there are some perfectly judged comedic turns from Robert Pizani, Georges Chamarat and Jeanne Provost, Pizani striking comedy gold as the stock ecclesiastical, as he would later do in Maurice Labro's J'y suis, j'y reste (1954)).   Some exterior sequences help the film to breathe, although you can't help thinking that the picturesque Provençal location could have been put to more use.   Président Haudecoeur is far from being Jean Dréville's most inspired film but, thanks to its true-to-life performances, it is has a charm and humanity that much of his subsequent work lacks.

Film Synopsis

President Haudecoeur is a public prosecutor with a reputation for being strict and inflexible, both in his professional and private life.  Living in Aix-en-Provence, he shares his grand house with his spinster sister Angéline, whose marriage plans he ruined, and his socially inept cousin Alexis.  A widower, he intends that his son Pierre will follow in his footsteps and has even arranged for him to marry into a wealthy family.  But Pierre is a reluctant law student and has no intention of wedding the ugly heiress his father has selected for him.  He has already lost his heart to another woman, the daughter of a Parisian station master, and since he has managed to get her pregnant he is resolved to marry her.  President Haudecoeur is predictably taken aback by this revelation and threatens to have nothing more to do with his son if he does not comply with his wishes.  No sooner has the inflexible prosecutor issued this ultimatum than he falls under the spell of Mrs Brown, an attractive Canadian.  Even though the woman is his social inferior, Haudecoeur cannot help liking her, and she seems equally taken with him...