| Le bossu (given the English title On Guard!), directed by Phillipe de Broca, features swordplay, court intrigue, horses dashing through the French countryside from Nice to Paris, all to the accompaniment of the music of Cavalleria Rusticana and based on an 1857 novel by Paul Féval. The story takes place at the turn of the seventeenth century. The villain is the Comte de Gonzague (played by Fabrice Luchini), who wants to gain great wealth, including ownership of the Mississippi Territory, but he will inherit a fortune only in the case of the untimely death of the robust Duke de Nevers (played by Vincent Perez), a handsome master of fencing. Aware that the Duke has fathered a child by Blanche de Caylus (played by Claire Nebout), Gonzague has hidden letters that reveal the pregnancy. However, when word of the birth of their child reaches the Duke one day, he sets out for her castle, a trip of several days, to marry her. Gonzague, accordingly, hires an army of assassins, who slay the entire wedding party and bring Blanche back to Paris, where she is confined to a room in the king’s castle for sixteen years. Before the Duke took the journey to marry his sweetheart, he met Lagardère (played by Daniel Auteuil), who challenged him to a fencing duel to learn his special sword technique, thereby impressing the Duke. Accordingly, the Duke hires Lagardère as a bodyguard for the trip. (Perhaps so that we will not be so disappointed about the fate of the Duke, the story has the Duke inviting Lagardère to engage in “sodomy,” an offer that the latter declines.) While the assassins are killing everyone in the wedding party, Lagardère pledges to a dying Duke that he will avenge the slaughter by reinstalling Blanche and their daughter Aurore to their rightful places in the kingdom. Lagardère then rescues their child and brings her up, pretending to be her father. In time, Lagardère returns to Paris to carry out his pledge. Disguised as a hunchback (hence the French title, which means “hunchback”), Gonzague hires Lagardère as his amanuensis. Lagardère then secretly meets Blanche, preparing her for a showdown with Gonzague, and he manipulates Gonzague’s accountbooks so that Blanche can reclaim her fortune as well as her position along with her daughter, teenage Aurore (played by Marie Gillain). With many subplots along the way, the story moves quickly to an expected conclusion, but with a lot of action, humor, and period costumes to ensure. Good triumphs over evil spectacularly. Although such a film doubtless would have broken box office records in the 1960s, when director de Broca began his career with such delights as Cartouche (1962), the 1998 French film Le bossu lamentably has taken five years to be exhibited in the United States, and only then to art house cinemas. MH |