Boudu Saved from Drowning | |
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File:305 boudu.jpg | |
Directed by | Jean Renoir |
Written by | René Fauchois (play) Jean Renoir |
Produced by | Michel Simon |
Starring | Michel Simon |
Music by | w:fr:Léo Daniderff (uncredited), title and end music by Raphael, flute music by J.Boulze, orphéon music by Edouard Dumoulin, Johann Strauss ("An der schönen, blauen Donau") |
Release date | 11 November 1932 |
Running time | 87 min. |
Country | Template:FilmFrance |
Language | French |
Boudu Saved from Drowning (French: Boudu sauvé des eaux, "Boudu saved from the waters") is a 1932 French film directed by Jean Renoir. Renoir wrote the film's screenplay, from the play by René Fauchois. The film stars Michel Simon as Boudu.
Bourgeois Parisian, Latin Quarter bookseller, Edouard Lestingois, (Charles Granval), rescues a tramp, Boudu, from a suicidal plunge into the river Seine, from the Pont des Arts. Boudu is brought into Lestingois' household. The family adopts the bum and dedicates itself to reforming him into a proper middle class person. Boudu (Michel Simon) shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations, challenging the hidebound manners of his hosts and seduces not only the housemaid but also Madame Lestingois herself. Gradually Boudu is tamed, shaved and given a haircut, and put in a suit. Then he wins a large sum of money on the lottery, and is guided into marrying the housemaid. Finally however, at the wedding scene, Boudu capsizes a rowing boat and floats away from the wedding party, and "back to his old vagrancy, a free spirit once more." [1]
The film was remade in 1986 for an American audience as Down and Out in Beverly Hills, directed by Paul Mazursky.[2] Another remake, Boudu, was released in 2005. Gérard Jugnot directed, from a screenplay by Philippe Lopes-Curval. It starred Gérard Depardieu as Boudu.