La taverne du poisson couronné (1947) User Reviews

Puts the Boo in Bouillabaise

[writers_reign · 3/10 · 7 August 2010]

A very dear friend gave me this film and having watched it I tried to think when I slept with his wife and ate his children because nothing less than crimes of that nature deserved punishment this severe. But seriously, folks, he knows how much I genuinely love all French films - which is as much as both he and I despise the new wave - so I think he was genuinely testing me to see if that love would falter in the face of something so inept. Renas Chanas took up directing at age 32 and threw in the towel - one suspects the industry threw it in his face - at 43 and I sincerely hope that this was his worst effort because anything worse would be impossible to imagine. On the positive side it has two of France's finest actors in Michel Simon and Jules Berry who had already worked together brilliantly in Les Mortes en fuit, plus Blanchette Brunoy who appeared in some excellent films of the period. What it doesn't have is anything resembling an original storyline, imaginative camera work - Chanas shoots everything in monotonous Master Shot, Long Shot, Mid Shot etc, that he clearly memorized from page #1 of How To Direct A Film. I'm glad I watched it because you need to see the bad stuff to realize how good the good stuff really is.

Captain Lear

[dbdumonteil · 28 February 2010]

There's good news: Michel Simon and Jules Berry in the same movie is always cause for celebration ;besides Blanchette Brunoy,generally cast as the nice young girl next door ,finds here an ambiguous part,which makes her look like king Lear's ungrateful daughter .

But there's also bad news ,which may account for the very low IMDb rating of the movie;the screenplay is rather weak and conventional,borrowing from many movies made before the war,from "Quai Des Brumes " to " Mollenard ,Capitaine Corsaire " (the ending of the latter is similar).Plus an interminable free-for-all in the tavern of the title (the crowned fish tavern)during which a murder is committed .

Good movie

[jorgecoli-19897 · 8/10 · 18 May 2022]

Good movie, fabulous actors, excellent mise en scène. A great director, forgotten today. Remarkable photography, fine tempest sequence over the ocean, witty dialogs.