Synopsis
A young grocer’s clerk with a bit of a penchant for mythology, Irénée is convinced that he will become a famous actor. He meets a film crew that tells him a cruel joke. He arrives at the studios full of hope…
“Schpountz” means simple-minded. As we would say in Marseille: he is a “fada”, we can say: he is a “schpountz”…
“When you make people laugh on stage or on screen, you don’t lower yourself, on the contrary. Laughing at those who come back from the fields, with their big hands so hard that they can’t close them anymore, those who come out of the office with their little chests that don’t know the taste of air anymore, those who come back from the factory, with their heads down, their nails broken, with black oil in the cuts of their fingers…
To make all those who will die laugh, to make all those who have lost their mother, or who will lose her, laugh…
Laughter is not a kind of absurd and vulgar convulsion but a human thing that perhaps God has given to men to console them for being intelligent.”
Marcel Pagnol
Technical data
- Genre: Comedy
- Duration: 2h03
- Director: Marcel Pagnol
- Script and dialogues: Marcel Pagnol
- Image: Willy Faktorovitch (designated Willy)
- Cameraman: Roger Ledru
- Camera assistant: Henri Dariès
- Sets: Marius Brouquier
- Sound: Marcel Levoignat (studio), Jean Lecoq (exterior)
- Editing: Suzanne de Troye, Suzanne Cabon, assistant Jeannette Ginestet
- Music: Casimir Oberfeld
- Song: Je n’ai jamais compris l’amour ou l’amour incompris, lyrics by Jean Manse
- Set photographer: Roger Corbeau
- Production: Marcel Pagnol
- Production company: Société Nouvelle des Films Marcel Pagnol
- Production manager: Charles Pons, assistant Léon Bourrely
- Stage Manager: Henri Garcia
- Distribution: Gaumont
Distribution
- Fernandel: Irénée Fabre, “the schpountz”, grocery clerk
- Orane Demazis: Françoise, editor
- Léon Belières: Meyerboom, director of the Yaourt-Meyerboom studios
- Robert Vattier: Astruc, chief operator
- Fernand Charpin: Baptiste Fabre, uncle of Irénée
- Jean Castan: Casimir Fabre, brother of Irénée
- Odette Roger: Clarisse Fabre, Irénée’s aunt
- Louisard: Charlet
- Henri Poupon: Galubert
- Robert Bassac: Dromart
- Charles Blavette: Martelette
- Enrico Glori: Bogidar Glazunoff, director
- Charblay: Adolphe, studio doorman
- Joseph Tyrand: the extra playing the role of the Pope
- Henri Champetier: Nick Durrante
- Beretta: the stage manager
- Jean Weber: the studio barman
- Alida Rouffe: Mrs. Fenuze
- Alice Roberts: Rita Camelio
- Marcel Maupi: the barman
- Jacques Brunius: the prop maker
- Robert Darène: an assistant
- André Pollack: the confessed
- André Roussin: Roussin
- Roger Forster: Lucien, the driver
- Pierre Brasseur: Cousin, set photographer
- Geo Forster: Cousin, set photographer
- LouisDucreuxDumielBorel: The prop maker
