Les Surprises de la radio (1940)
Directed by Marcel Aboulker

Film Review

In our present multi-channel, multi-media world, it's hard to imagine what a crucial part radio once played in the lives of most people.  Before the advent of television, it was the predominant medium of entertainment and information, and its importance is succinctly conveyed by Les Surprises de la radio, the debut film from French Algerian director Marcel Aboulker.  The latter had success with a series of popular mainstream comedies, including Les Aventures des Pieds-Nickelés (1948) and La Dame de chez Maxim's (1950), before he was tragically struck down by an incurable illness at the age of 47.

Les Surprises de la radio is by no means a great film (the pace is uneven, the plot contrived and much of the humour is corny) but it gives an insight into how radio programmes were made in the late 1930s and how central these were to people's lives.  Marguerite Moreno and Armand Bernard, two of French cinema's great eccentrics, are prominent in a likeable cast that includes Grégoire Aslan, Mady Berry, Pierre Dac and Claude Dauphin.  A great comic performer, Dac made an important contribution to French radio after the war, creating (with Francis Blanche) one of the most successful of all French radio shows, Signé Furax.  Dac's formidable presence alone makes Les Surprises de la radio worth watching.

Film Synopsis

The Bontemps are an ordinary French family who, like all of the other residents in the peaceful little village of Coussy la Chapelle, are chronically addicted to the radio.  Coco, Jacqueline Bontemps's fiancée, enters every single competition that is broadcast on the radio, but he always does so under the name Monsieur Bontemps.  To his delight, Coco ends up winning one of these competitions, his prize being a family excursion to Paris to visit the radio studio and attend a live broadcast.  It is with considerable excitement and some apprehension that the entire Bontemps family sets out for the French capital, for a day they will never forget...