Film Review: The Troops of St. Tropez (Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez, 1964)

almost 5 years ago (Edited)

(source: tmdb.org)

When someone mentions French cinema in the 1960s, the first thing that comes to mind is the French New Wave. In terms of box office, the most successful French films at the time were comedies starring Louis de Funès. One of the first was The Troops of St. Tropez, a 1964 film directed by Jean Girault, which spawned a successful series of five more films.

In the film, de Funès plays Ludovic Cruchot, a member of the National Gendarmerie tasked with enforcing the law in a small village in the department of Hautes-Alpes. His dedication pays off and he gets a promotion to Master Sergeant and a transfer to the department of Var, which includes the small harbour town of St. Tropez. There he finds that his new subordinates have become too accustomed to the laid-back lifestyle of the local citizens, so he decides to bring them back into shape. That pays off when, after a series of humiliating failures, his men manage to catch and arrest a group of nudists that were illegally using local beaches. A much bigger challenge for Cruchot is created by his rebellious daughter Nicole (played by Geneviève Grad) who wants to hang out with local ‘cool’ youths and, in order to do so, invents the story that her father is a rich businessman who owns one of the yachts in the harbour. Unbeknownst to her, the yacht owner is actually a criminal who has stolen a valuable Rembrandt painting.

The film originated as the idea of co-writer Richard Balducci, based on some of his experiences in St. Tropez and its local gendarmes whom he found strangely disinterested in enforcing the law. The script, however, doesn’t put that much emphasis on the conflict between the uptight Cruchot and his laid-back men. Instead, a lot of the humour is based on the generational conflict between Nicole and her father, but this is exploited only in the second half of the film, following the brilliant segment in which Cruchot tries to outsmart the nudists. In that segment, the comedic abilities of de Funès are put to excellent use, especially in the scenes in which circumstances force Cruchot to take part in his daughter’s charade and assume various identities. Jean Girault directs the film with great ease, using not only great acting talents, but also the eye-pleasing locations of the French Riviera. An important contribution is made by composer Raymond Lefebvre, who wrote the catchy song “Douilou Douilou Saint Tropez” as well as the Gendarmes March, inspired by ‘Colonel Bogey’s March’ from The Bridge on the River Kwai. Although some of the jokes related to early 1960s films and other aspects of popular culture look a little dated and the villains are terribly one-dimensional, The Troops of St. Tropez is for the most part as entertaining as it was more than five and a half decades ago and, as such, could be recommended to today’s audience.

RATING: 7/10 (++)