The Baker's Wife

The Brattle has been relying heavily on old French movies this spring, and while the latest offering is not the worst, I think the Brattle had best turn to greener fields.

The Baker's Wife can be summed up in four words: a Marcel Pagnol production. It has the usual kindly, middle-aged fat man and the usual beautiful young thing who strays from the straight and narrow; after alarums and excursions, the fat man forgives the young thing, and all is well again. Romantic love and romantic pride sustain another defeat at the hands of the gentler virtues.

This time the fat man is a baker, and once again he is played by Raimu. He is the perfect Pagnol hero, being the arch-type of the French provincial middle-class, and a fine comedian as well. Without Raimu, The Baker's Wife would be bad beyond any telling of it.

One of the substantial chunks of badness that remains is Mlle. LeClerc, who plays the baker's young wife. She is a representative of the pre-Bardot tradition, but goes entirely too far in the other direction; she looks like a nun who had been only mildly unattractive until she met with a nasty accident. Since her beauty is the fulcrum of the plot, it sags heavily whenever she is around; happily enough, she spend most of the time off-screen in the arms of her lover.

Eventually, a posse is sent to fetch her back, the shepherd absconds, and she crawls contritely back to a tender reconciliation with the baker. I suspect that, having failed in love, she took to poisoning wells.