La marraine de Charley: A loud, dusty mess of a farce

Is this worth the time?

Honestly, you probably don't need to watch La marraine de Charley unless you are a die-hard fan of French stage comedies from the thirties. It’s loud, it’s a bit frantic, and it definitely feels like a play that just happened to have a camera pointed at it. If you like your humor fast and slightly desperate, you might find a kick here. Everyone else? You’ll probably just want to take a nap.

The whole premise is classic farce stuff—students needing a chaperone, a fake aunt, and a whole lot of lying. It’s the kind of plot that requires everyone to be a bit stupid just to keep the story moving. And boy, are they stupid here. The level of commitment to these bad disguises is actually kind of impressive in a tragic sort of way.

The vibe is just... busy

There is this moment where someone is hiding behind a chair, and it goes on for what feels like an entire afternoon. It isn't particularly funny, but it’s just there, hanging in the air. You can almost see the actors waiting for their next cue to jump out and scream a line.

The acting is definitely a product of its time. Everything is dialed up to eleven. Sometimes I wondered if they were acting for the back row of a theater that wasn't actually there. It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Their Dizzy Finish, but without the benefit of being short and sweet.

• The costumes look like they were pulled from a bargain bin in 1936.
• The sound mixing is a bit of a nightmare; I had to turn the volume up and down every two minutes.
• Marguerite Moreno is doing some heavy lifting here. Honestly, she’s the only one who seems to know what movie she’s actually in.

I found myself zoning out during the long dialogue scenes. It’s just people talking about money or marriage, over and over again. It lacks the sharp edge of something like The Strange Love of Molly Louvain, which at least had a bit of grit to it. This just feels like a soft, dusty blanket of a movie.

Is it a bad film? Not exactly. It just feels like a chore. There’s a scene involving a tea set that I’m fairly sure lasted three years. I checked my watch. Twice.

Still, if you’re into the history of how these things were made, there’s a certain charm to the artificiality of it all. It doesn’t pretend to be deep. It’s just trying to get a laugh, even if it has to hit you over the head with a tray to get it. 🤷‍♂️