Candide ou l'optimisme au XXe siècle (1960)

The script writers have transposed the action of Voltaire's famous novel in the to the twentieth century,essentially the forties and the fifties.By doing so ,they did not make it realistic for all that: Carbonneaux's movie remain a fable faithful to the writer's spirit.Do not look for historical accuracy here: it's a mad story where the writers found good equivalents of the horrors depicted by Voltaire (particularly the horror of war).It does not always works ,but when it works,the lines are really funny and Jean-Pierre Cassel is ideally cast as Candide who ,in the worst situations, always shares the philosophy of his master Pangloss "everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" ,perfect paraphrase of "it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good" or "every cloud has a silver lining".

The cast is a who's who of the French cinema: Michel Simon is a military man ,who rejoices every time a new war breaks out;Daliah Lavi,who already played opposite Cassel in Gance's "Cyrano et d'Artagnan" is Mademoiselle Cunégonde,Candide's only love ,who is raped after the massacre of her parents and later ends up a harem in Morocco; Also featured are Pierre Brasseur,Michel Serrault -then teaming up with Jean Poiret-,Nadia Gray,Louis de Funès (you read well) as a man of the gestapo,Jacqueline Maillan ,Jean Richard and more...

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