L'impossible Monsieur Pipelet

Monsieur Martin's nickname ,"Pipelet" ,is taken from Eugène Sue's mammoth novel "Les Mystères De Paris;"Pipelet" has become a common name for the "Concierges",a very frequent job at the time .

André Hunebelle was not what they call "an auteur" :he used to see which way the Wind blew and made gentle comedies (like this one) ,sword and sandal movies and spy thrillers,depending on the taste of the era .

Michel Simon was,as usual ,perfect as the lead :although his daughter has just got her Baccalauréat -which,at the time,was something !- ,he always enjoys using slang with one of the tenants ,a would be "writer" ,maybe a nod to his old part in "Fric Frac " ;otherwise,I think that his then-co-star Arletty would have made a much better wife than sluggish Gaby Morlay ,who is too distinguished to play a woman of the people successfully.

This is more a succession of daily life vignettes than a real screenplay;the love affair between the Concierge's daughter and the owner of the house (a self made man who has become the king of canned peas)does not take more than 20 minutes in the whole film.

There are some interesting lines:"Why should we call him "Monsieur Richet" whereas he calls us "My good fellow"? "So princes don't marry Shepherd girls? Who do you think you are?the king of canned peas whose father was a greengrocer!would you call your son a prince?" Louis De Funès is cast as Simon's brother-in-law but he already has a tendency to overplay;Louis Velle would become famous in the early seventies thanks to "La Demoiselle D'Avignon" TV series .

It's an old-fashioned movie,but it shows the little world of men and women of the people in the mid-fifties.

Two aging stars of the French Cinema (Morlay and the great Simon) are the only two reasons to have a nostalgic look at this little film. The two are doin' very fine, while the rest of the cast is over acting. Michel Simon plays a simple old man with a lot of love for his only daughter (Choureau). She falls in love with a doctor's son and he don't understand why. The story is too simple, too conservative, without a spark of imagination. This is the kind of movie that was very popular in small towns of France during the 1950's. It was always the first part of a double feature.