The Cow and I (1959)

Simply A Masterpiece

Absolutely Fantastic

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I hoped for a human story. I did not get it.It is about the war. It is not about being heroic in the war. And that is where the script ends. During a long and boring film you get certain flashes: the German girl is treating the French well. The French have bad French gestapovists. The story starts out of nothing. And ends with a promise to have a better second movie. Meaning it ends where it started: nowhere.Dull. Quite obvious. The war is glossed over. More like a silly video game where the hero has to get out of a maze. The war is the excuse to have the hero turn round the maze. The rest is glossed over going to the point of ridicule where the Russians (sounds more like Polish) are unguarded, but the Frenchmen are.This movie is one in a long tradition of French movies with no cultural value. The team can only hope the story gets old enough in order to get some historic value, in the sense "your grandma was your age when this movie was in theaters". At least La Grade vadrouille can be funny.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

Three years ago - 2009 - the Academic-Pseud axis decided to nominate it as the fiftieth anniversary of the nouvelle vague, based on the year that Godard's Brainless was released. So it gives me extra pleasure to remind these jerks that THIS film, starring a man who had been making films for 29 years in 1959 was far and away the top-grossing film that year whilst Brainless couldn't even beat Hercules Unchained into tenth place, which proves that French cinema-goers chose to see what THEY wanted to see and not what Truffaut THOUGHT they should see. I'd never seen it myself and now that I have I find it holds up very well and has the virtue of being a true story. The basic premise is a combination of the old Army Game - walk about all day with a clipboard in your hand and no one will question what you're really doing - and Hide In Plain Sight. Not to put too fine a point on it Charles Bailly (Fernandel), bored with being a P.O.W. in the more or less open prison of a farm in Germany, decides to walk back home accompanied by a cow, making no attempt to evade German patrols and relying on everyone assuming he has some real purpose other than the real one. Fernandel was, of course, a rubber-faced clown and made his name (and fortune) in that capacity but he had shown he was capable of more dramatic acting in one or two isolated films and he does so again here. Excellent.

This is Fernandel's blockbuster.Even before the war,none of his movies had made so much money.Further detailed retrospection indicates that "La Vache et le Prisonnier" thoroughly deserved its success.Even today,when it is on TV ,it attracts figures of million people.It is not certainly weaker than Renoir's "Le Caporal Epinglé" although Verneuil is not considered an "auteur".During WW2, a prisoner tries to escape from Germany.It will not be a "great escape" .To get unnoticed he will travel with a cow called Marguerite (=Daisy).This unusual pairing en route to the man's homeland is not out of the woods.Based on a true story, this entertaining movie features an unexpected funny (or sad more like!) ending.The whole family can enjoy it:the children will love Marguerite.

This film by Henri Verneuil showed Fernandel in one of his best roles. Today he is still funny as a cheeky but down-to-earth man with simple needs who is dragged into impossible situations. This is an out-of-the-ordinary "love story" between a man and and a stubborn cow (the animal of course, nothing offensive let me reassure you) called Marguerite...I like the twist at the end after all their little adventures.Charmingly dated but worth seeing again if you are feeling a bit nostalgic !