Fanfare d'amour (1935)

Fanfare d'amour (1935)

aka Fanfare of Love

starring Fernand Gravey, Julien Carette, Betty Stockfeld

directed by Richard Pottier

115 minutes

French with English subtitles

Jean (Fernand Gravey) and Pierre (Julien Carette), unemployed musicians, dress up in drag, call themselves Jeanette and Pierrette, and take jobs in a women's orchestra just before it travels to Toulon. Both develop crushes on Gaby (Betty Stockfeld), another member of the orchestra. Both show up out of drag at various points trying to woo Gaby. Jules, one of the managers of the hotel where the orchestra is performing, repeatedly hits on Jeanette.

Thoughts

I saw this film at the AFI Silver. It was introduced by film historian David Pierce who spoke for about 10 minutes about the film's relationship to Some Like It Hot (1959) and some of the people involved in the making of the Fanfare d'amour (1932).

This film directly (or indirectly) inspired Some Like It Hot (1959). There is some debate as to whether Billy Wilder, the director of the 1959 film, ever saw this film. Two of the writers who worked on this film are credited as coming up with the story that the 1959 movie is based upon without referencing this film by name.

I think this is a decent film but it isn't great. None of the characters are particularly well developed. There are some funny scenes but they made me smile or chuckle. There weren't any moments that made me laugh out loud. The subtitles went by a little too quickly at times. It seemed like (based on my understanding of French) that some of the translations for the subtitles were a little too literal.

I can't help but think of this movie in comparison to Some Like It Hot (1959) even though I haven't seen that movie in over two decades. I feel as though Fanfare d'amour (1935) could have been better paced. It felt in ways like a collection of moments more than it did a single story even though it clearly was a single story. I'm not sure if its fair of me to look at it this way but that's where I am. Its hard not to judge it in comparison to my memories of the latter film because that's the way it was presented.