Le Bossu (1934) Review - A messy but fun French swashbuckler

If you want to spend two hours watching a guy in 18th-century French gear pretend to have a spine deformity just to stab a bad guy, Le bossu is definitely your jam.

Anyone who loves old-school swashbucklers where the swords sound like forks hitting plates will have a blast. But if you can't stand scratchy soundtracks and actors who look like they are shouting at the back row of a theater, stay far away. 😅

This 1934 version of the classic Paul Féval story is super dusty, yet it has this weird, frantic energy that I couldn't stop watching.

Robert Vidalin plays Lagardère, the hero who swears revenge after his wealthy buddy gets murdered by the slimy Prince de Gonzague.

To do this, he has to hide out and protect a baby girl, who eventually grows up into the lovely Aurore, played by Josseline Gaël.

The way he hides is by putting on this massive fake hump and speaking in a weird, squeaky voice. Honestly, the hump looks like someone stuffed a couch cushion under his shirt.

It shifts around during the action scenes, which made me laugh out loud twice.

Speaking of the action, the sword fights are surprisingly intense, even if they look a bit like a dance routine. There is a scene in a dark room where the shadows on the wall are giant, and it actually looks cooler than most modern CGI fights.

It reminded me a bit of the silent-era style you see in Le lion des Mogols, where the camera just sits there and lets the actors go absolutely wild with their physical movements.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Le bossu (1934) through its definitive frames.

Some of the acting is... well, it is very 1930s. Samson Fainsilber plays the villain Gonzague, and he does this thing where he narrows his eyes so hard I thought he was having a migraine.

His performance is so loud, but hey, that is the charm of early talkies.

The film also suffers from some really bad pacing in the middle. There is about twenty minutes where people just sit in a room and talk about papers and inheritances, and I totally zoned out.

I started looking at the background extras, who seemed just as bored as I was. One guy in the back was literally just playing with his sleeve.

But then the movie gets back to the swordplay, and it picks right up.

It’s not quite as polished as something like I Stand Condemned, which came out around the same decade and had a bit more dramatic weight.

Still, there is a great climax where the secret oath is finally revealed, and the music swells so loudly it almost blew out my cheap speakers. 📣

It's messy, the film print is dirty, and some of the transitions are so abrupt they give you whiplash. But it has a genuine heart that you don't see in modern studio films.

If you can find a copy with decent subtitles, give it a spin on a rainy Sunday afternoon.