L'Emmerdeur (1973) collector edition has English subs
05-01-06, 12:34 AM
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L'Emmerdeur (1973) collector edition has English subs
The new 2 DVD edition of this famous French movie from 70s with Lino Ventura and Jacques Brel has English subs
http://www.dvdrama.com/fiche.php?5535&detailsvotes=
http://www.dvdrama.com/fiche.php?5535&detailsvotes=
05-02-06, 02:00 PM
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New York Times 1975 review:
" Screen: 'A Pain in the ':French Farce Stars Jacques Brel
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By RICHARD EDER
Published: August 11, 1975
Pignon is a gangling, frog-faced necktie salesman. His car is decorated with plastic flowers and a teddy bear whose eyes light up when the brakes are applied. He is a man of damp enthusiasms and uncoordinated passion and probably wears socks in bed.
Not surprisingly, his wife, who aspires to elegance, horseback riding and Paris-Match, has left him for the local psychiatrist. Pignon checks into the main hotel of the provincial capital and sets to work to kill himself.
The room next to him is occupied by Ralph, a professional assassin who has arrived on the opposite mission. He is to shoot a key witness in a corruption trial that is to take place in the Palace of Justice across the street. The crowded French farce "A Pain in the A—" ("L'Emmerdeur"), which opened at the 68th Street Playhouse yesterday, tells how the two men's efforts entwine hopelessly and are mutually frustrated.
Ralph, played by Lino Ventura, puts out a "do not disturb" sign and is assembling his rifle when water floods through the door crack. Pignon (Jacques Brel) has tried to hang himself, managing only to snap off the showerhead.
Furiously, Ralph helps the hotel bellhop extricate Pignon. The latter promptly directs the full force of his sticky fervor at the reluctant gangster, thrusting on him the role of spectator and rescuer at each successive suicide attempt. He involves him in a half-hearted campaign to get his wife to feel sorry for him and take him back.
Each time Ralph settles down to put his rifle together. Pignon intrudes spectacularly. Finally, in one tussle, Ralph's rifles goes off, the police open fire, and the would-be suicide and assassin are both jailed.
"I am very glad to have met you," Pignon tells his victim near the end. "I was very lonely these last three months." Trotting around the jail yard just ahead of his admirer, the efficient loner Ralph has clearly been given a life sentence of incompetent companionship.
Pignon is a character with enough originality and outrageousness to make this, potentially, a funny and biting picture. There are some fine moments. Pignon trots along on foot beside his wife on horseback, trying to win her back. He holds up some, photographs of their new house. "But they're in color," he bleats, as she rides away without looking.
But "A Pain," though generally pleasant and often amusing, doesn't quite manage to be itself. One weakness is its French farce convention. It is packed so full of gags and reverses—many of them pretty worn out—that it becomes cloying. The French overeat, figuratively speaking, at their farces.
A bigger weakness, though, is that although Mr. Brel is a considerable singer, he is not the marvelous actor that is needed to make the sprawling improbability of Pignon take off. He drags Pignon around manfully but can't get him going on his own. Similarly, though less crucially. Lino Ventura, in a part Jean Gabin might have played, is meager and stolid."
" Screen: 'A Pain in the ':French Farce Stars Jacques Brel
* Save
By RICHARD EDER
Published: August 11, 1975
Pignon is a gangling, frog-faced necktie salesman. His car is decorated with plastic flowers and a teddy bear whose eyes light up when the brakes are applied. He is a man of damp enthusiasms and uncoordinated passion and probably wears socks in bed.
Not surprisingly, his wife, who aspires to elegance, horseback riding and Paris-Match, has left him for the local psychiatrist. Pignon checks into the main hotel of the provincial capital and sets to work to kill himself.
The room next to him is occupied by Ralph, a professional assassin who has arrived on the opposite mission. He is to shoot a key witness in a corruption trial that is to take place in the Palace of Justice across the street. The crowded French farce "A Pain in the A—" ("L'Emmerdeur"), which opened at the 68th Street Playhouse yesterday, tells how the two men's efforts entwine hopelessly and are mutually frustrated.
Ralph, played by Lino Ventura, puts out a "do not disturb" sign and is assembling his rifle when water floods through the door crack. Pignon (Jacques Brel) has tried to hang himself, managing only to snap off the showerhead.
Furiously, Ralph helps the hotel bellhop extricate Pignon. The latter promptly directs the full force of his sticky fervor at the reluctant gangster, thrusting on him the role of spectator and rescuer at each successive suicide attempt. He involves him in a half-hearted campaign to get his wife to feel sorry for him and take him back.
Each time Ralph settles down to put his rifle together. Pignon intrudes spectacularly. Finally, in one tussle, Ralph's rifles goes off, the police open fire, and the would-be suicide and assassin are both jailed.
"I am very glad to have met you," Pignon tells his victim near the end. "I was very lonely these last three months." Trotting around the jail yard just ahead of his admirer, the efficient loner Ralph has clearly been given a life sentence of incompetent companionship.
Pignon is a character with enough originality and outrageousness to make this, potentially, a funny and biting picture. There are some fine moments. Pignon trots along on foot beside his wife on horseback, trying to win her back. He holds up some, photographs of their new house. "But they're in color," he bleats, as she rides away without looking.
But "A Pain," though generally pleasant and often amusing, doesn't quite manage to be itself. One weakness is its French farce convention. It is packed so full of gags and reverses—many of them pretty worn out—that it becomes cloying. The French overeat, figuratively speaking, at their farces.
A bigger weakness, though, is that although Mr. Brel is a considerable singer, he is not the marvelous actor that is needed to make the sprawling improbability of Pignon take off. He drags Pignon around manfully but can't get him going on his own. Similarly, though less crucially. Lino Ventura, in a part Jean Gabin might have played, is meager and stolid."
