Le Fruit défendu

A rather derivative, though heartfelt, tale of middle-aged depression and obsession for the "forbidden fruit" of youth and escape from imposed social conventions, but the film is worth seeing primarily for the three leads: Fernandel gives an effectively subdued, restrained performance in a change-of-pace role (with only one extended comedy scene), Françoise Arnoul is just as sexy as Bardot if not more, constantly teasing the censorship rules of the era and flirting with complete nudity, and Claude Nollier is superb as Fernandel's wife. Be warned, however: despite Georges Simenon's name on the credits, there are absolutely zero crime elements in this picture from beginning to end. **1/2 out of 4.

Simenon's novel Lettre à mon juge is here filmed as Forbidden Fruit by a competent commercial director, Henri Verneuil, and a fine cast made up of Fernandel, Raymond Pellegrin, Sylvie, Claude Nollier and Françoise Arnoul. Fernandel, one of the finest actors of world cinema when he wasn't making Don Camillo pictures, does a wonderful impression of a man drowning in provincial bourgeois respectability whose life is turned upside down by a sexy young thing met by chance in a train station. There are several superb scenes: for instance, at the outdoor concert where the dancers wind through the crowd, thoroughly disturbing Dr. Pellegrin's guilty thoughts.

What happened to Françoise Arnoul's career? She's unforgettable as Martine, the thoughtless little adventurer who uses men as steps on a ladder. Her apotheosis came in French Can-Can two years later with Renoir; as Nini the seamstress turned dancer she made a sensation. The New Wave directors ignored her however, and she was stuck playing tarts in thrillers for many years.

Considering Neo-Realism was really invented by a French writer-director, Marcel Pagnol (who also invented "poetic realism" in the process), this is its natural legacy. It could have been called "Adultery - French Provincial Style". It is remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is Fernandel's dramatic turn as a two-timing husband giving in to temptation with a kind of childish, innocent glee and Françoise Arnoul's affirmation as a typically French sex symbol representing everything "wrong" with the new generation. It is realistic in that it doesn't over-dramatize the sexual aspects but delves rather seriously in the social and psychological consequences of adultery. It is also shot on location in Arles. The production values, direction, music (by Paul "Mademoiselle de Paris" Durand) and acting (including a good part for Sylvie) are beyond compare. Highly recommended and worth more than all the New Wave films combined...

It might seem strange but Fernandel's talent was huge in dramas as well.Most of his parts in Marcel Pagnol's works verged on tragic anyway.

The film begins with the celebration of Doctor Pellegrin's forty-fifth birthday.He seems a happy man with a beautiful wife .Henri Verneuil (then a much better director than in the sixties when he made blockbusters by the dozen) introduces his hero with a painting first.

A very long flash back tells us that the doctor's life was not a happy one;his wife was a straight bourgeois lady and he fell for a young girl ,Martine (Françoise Arnoul who sometimes steals the show from the star).

The story is not really quirky but the cast (it also includes the excellent Sylvie)makes up for it.There are also nice pictures of Arles (and the Alyscamps,the biggest Roman necropolis in France.

"Le fruit défendu" (= French for "the forbidden fruit") deals with an all too familiar theme: a man aged 45, locked up in his marriage, fatherhood and profession, gets involved with a much younger girl.

Set in the early fifties in the South of France, the predictability of this film's story is more than compensated by both Fernanadel's and Arnoul's excellent acting.

These two leads treat us to some fine human nuances. For instance, how their affair's development is favored by the wife's cold ambition to keep up with high society -- leaving much of her husband's genuine feelings towards her unanswered in the process.

Also fascinating is the mix between the young girl's passion and calculation. And how the latter gradually takes over with the progress of their affair.

But for Fernandel's and Arnoul's play, this film would have been forgotten for a long time.