This is the story of a cult comedy of the seventh art in France. In 1964, the public discovered at the cinema Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez directed by Jean Girault. At the time, spectators had the joy of finding key faces like Louis de Funès, and his comedian friend Michel Galabru. One in the skin of Chief Marshal Cruchot, the other in the costume of Warrant Officer Gerber.
The first, transferred under the sun of the Côte d’Azur, must team up with the second officer with his brigade of gendarmes (Jean Lefebvre, Christian Marin, Guy Grosso and Michel Modo). Responsible for bringing order and tranquility to the seaside resort, these men in uniform find themselves in spite of themselves in unusual and incredible situations. However, Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez was born from an idea of the writer and press officer Richard Balducci after a strange misadventure.
As Bertrand Dicale relates in his book Louis de Funès de A à Z, published by Gründ editions, screenwriter Richard Balducci is scouting on the Côte d’Azur. One day, “he had his camera stolen from his convertible”. When he decided to go to the gendarmerie to report the incident, “a pandora in shirt sleeves is surprised that he wants to file a complaint at lunchtime, and tells him that he knows very well who is the thief of the camera, but that nothing can be done immediately”.
Faced with this totally nonchalant gendarmerie officer, Richard Balducci leaves dissatisfied, assuring him that he will make such an incompetent brigade famous. “Originally, the film was to be a small, unpretentious French comedy,” author Henry-Jean Servat told Planet. The sequel, you know it: from this simple film for which he submitted the idea to Louis de Funès, asking Jean Girault and Jean Vilfried to write the screenplay, Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez was to experience a dazzling and unexpected success. “No one imagined at the time that there would be six films in the series”, assures us the film and TV journalist.
With more than 7.8 million spectators, the first part of the Saint-Tropez saga marked the success of 1964 and the third biggest film of Louis de Funès’ career. “He changed his status by becoming a star thanks to the film when producers Gérard Beytout and René Pignères did not want him at the start”, specifies Henry-Jean Servant, preferring Daryl Cowl or Francis Blanche. Almost 60 years after its release, this comedy has become one of the cultural references in Saint-Tropez.
Before being a city of cinema and the jet-set, Saint-Tropez remains a seaside resort on the Côte d’Azur where tourists and onlookers stroll along the beach. In this postcard where the sun shines at its zenith, the hot sand caresses the skin of holidaymakers and the waves tickle the faces of bathers, the summer of 1964 sees a crowd of cameras, trucks and technical teams disembark for the shooting of Jean’s film Girault.
“At the time, it was easy to shoot in Saint-Tropez. There were a lot of people and the music was on,” says writer Henry-Jean Servat for Planet. “Today it’s crowded, we can’t do anything. It’s more complicated materially to shoot there. Almost 60 years ago, it was easier to live there”.
“Shooting began on June 5, 1964 outdoors in Saint-Tropez. More than half of the shots were shot in the open air, the others being made at the Victorine studios in Nice”, indicates the writer Bertrand Dicale in his book, revealing in passing. “To hold the three five minutes of useful film per day, Jean Girault willingly lets his actors improvise”.
On the set in 1964, we could meet confirmed actors like Michel Galabru and Louis de Funès, but also young talents like Patrice Laffont. “The atmosphere on the set was very fun. There were only the gendarmes who grumbled because they had brought their uniform. While Patrice Laffont and his group were dressed in T-shirts, jeans and light trousers”, reports the septuagenarian writer. But, was the atmosphere really good between the actors?
On the screen as in the city, the complicity between Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru was obvious. “It worked well between them,” recalls Henry-Jean Servant, before confiding in the interpreter of Warrant Officer Gerber. “He was mad with happiness to have shot this film, it amused him a lot. He was flabbergasted to see the success it had”.
For the ex-columnist and friend of Michel Galabru, “he got on divinely with De Funès. While the journalists tried to pit us against each other”, the latter had confided to him during his lifetime. However, a dissension broke out between Louis de Funès and Jean Lefebvre. “They did not get along at all. Because he was downright jealous of the glory of De Funès”, relates the journalist by telephone.
At the heart of the conflict, Jean Lefebvre complained of having been cut during the editing in the film Le Gendarme se marie. It was without counting on the director Jean Girault who stepped up to the plate in Paris-Jour, claiming that the latter was “mediocre” and that he was the “highest paid extra in the world”.
