Three Feet in a Bed (1950)
In spite of his failures as a peddler, Casimir guaranteed his fiance that this time the vacuum cleaners will work for good. But he's still unsuccessful until he go to the appartment of Paul-Andre, a painter who was engaged by correspondence to a rich south-American woman. That's exactly when she arrive armed with a gun infuriated after she had received a rupture letter from the man she had never seen. She mistakenly took Casimir as her painter lover. Casimir his ready to flee until he learned she owned many hotels, a thousand rooms in fact. "A thousand rooms, a thousand vacuum cleaners", he suddenly think.
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Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Fernandel stars as the title character--a poor schmuck, again who is trying, to make a living at yet another job as a door-tog-time-door salesman. This time, he's selling vacuum cleaners and his long-time fiancée is worried that yet again, he'll fall on his face. But, the well-meaning and dim Casimir is determined to make it big.For much of the film, Casimir goes from one failed sale to another--making the film seem very episodic. Most of these are moderately amusing and the film is rather enjoyable. However, about mid-way through the film, he stumbles upon a lead that takes up the entire rest of the film. Unfortunately, this large chunk of the film is not super funny--pleasant, yes, but also a bit overlong and slow. Still, with Fernandel's personality and a few nice gags here and there, the film is a nice enough time-passer. Hilarious? No. But not bad, either.In some ways, this film is a bit like Abbott & Costello film "Little Giant" merged with a Mr. Hulot film. While I am one of the few people who loved "Little Giant", I strongly recommend you see it--it has a depth and acting that make it more than just a light comedy.
... if you're trying to sell them door-to-door as Fernandel finds himself doing as the eponymous Casimir. Hungarian Richard Pottier went to bat some 38 times in his career and can at least claim that he worked with Jacques Prevert (on Une Oiseau rare) but for a Journeyman director this isn't bad at all. Speaking for myself I liked the way Pottier was prepared to spend the first three reels giving Fernandel a chance to establish his klutziness with a couple of set-pieces one in an executive's office and one in a psychiatric clinic before getting to the main thrust of the plot. When he calls on painter, Andre, he is unaware of the relationship between Andre and South American gotrocks Angelita. Having given her the air Andre wants to make himself scarce before she shows up and when she does she mistakes Casimir for Andre, natch. The usual complications follow and much is made of a scene in which Casimir and Andre are sharing a bed. Angelita has booked both a manicurist and a pedicurist and the latter is called on to do a skull (double take) when Fernandel gets out of bed, his pajama bottoms concealing his feet as the pedicurist is still working on the unseen Andre's. It all works out in the end and is highly enjoyable providing you like Fernandel.