Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez

Jean Girault (1962)

The French cinema I was raised on mostly consists of popular comedies made between 1960 and 1990. I certainly have missed out on a lot of good movies, but fortunately for me a lot of these comedies are really good!

In Louis de Funes’ most famous role, we follow gendarme Cruchot, moving with his daugther from a small village to the town of Saint-Tropez, where he will be waging war on nude swimmers, confronting local robbers, and trying to keep his daugther out of trouble.

The Bad: It feels a bit long at times, there is the awful lip-sync of italian actors playing the robbers

The Good: Louis de Funes is a big part of French comedic cinema, and you can see why in this. He’s unique in his ability to act whit his whole body. Great fun, introducing most of the characters we’ll see in the sequels. I love seeing France in the 1960’s too

My opinion: A good first entry in the Gendarme series, not the best but it will lead to much better sequels