Uniformes et grandes manoeuvres (1950)
Directed by René Le Hénaff

Film Review

With a few notable exceptions - the lively comedy L'Amant de Bornéo (1942) and moody period drama Le Colonel Chabert (1943) - René Le Hénaff's directing career was pretty undistinguished, and certainly not a patch on his career as an editor, on such classics as À nous la liberté (1931) and  Le Quai des brumes (1938).  Uniformes et grandes manoeuvres was the last film he directed and it easily rates as his worst - a limp Fernandel comedy that gallops along like a mad horse, without any semblance of logic or structure.  At least Le Hénaff's previous Fernandel offering - Le Mystère Saint-Val (1945) - had something that vaguely resembled a plot to hold it together.  Uniformes et grandes manoeuvres is just a shambolic mess that merely looks like a lazy compilation of earlier Fernandel films, strung together without any thought or care whatsoever.

Once again, the horse-faced comedian is teamed up with Andrex, the less talented performer who seemed to be perpetually cast as the libidinous carefree bachelor.  In Le Hénaff's swansong disaster, both Fernandel and Andrex are effortlessly outclassed by Thérèse Dorny, whose eccentric aunt is the only character we are allowed to warm to.  The bevy of beauties that the two lead actors end up juggling, looking like old lechers in a girl's finishing school, leave no impression.  Just when the silly recycled plot conceit involving a playboy-cum-inventor trying to extort money from his aged relative comes to a shuddering halt through lack of ideas the film suddenly goes off the rails and becomes a tedious rehash of Fernandel's earlier military comedies of the 1930s.  There are a few laughs to be had but for the most part the gags are ineptly over-egged and Uniformes et grandes manoeuvres ends up as an exercise in futility.  Lacking commitment on just about every front it just collapses under the weight of its ineptitude and impresses as the most pointless and vacuous farce you can imagine.  In common with several Fernandel films of this period, it must have looked as if the comic icon had definitely had his day.

Film Synopsis

Luc, a doorman at the Miramar nightclub, knows too well the perils of returning a mislaid object to its owner.  He recalls the fateful day when playboy André Duroc left his cigarette case behind.  Being a thoughtful and honest soul, Luc promptly telephoned Duroc and was surprised when the reveller invited him to his apartment to pass himself off as a member of the nobility in front of his aunt.  It seems that Duroc is badly in need of some cash for a business venture and his aunt is reluctant to hand over the readies.  With Luc's help, Duroc hopes to put his aunt in a more amenable frame of mind.  The interview goes off better than he planned.  The troublesome aunt is so taken with Luc that she insists he spends a few days at her château in the country.  Duroc shows up in tow, accompanied by one of his girlfriends, whom he passes off as Luc's sister.  When the subterfuge is uncovered, Luc takes flight and ends up being mistaken for a solider on manoeuvres, with disastrous consequences...