User Reviews

This was an attempt by a French studio to emulate the success of the 'Ealing comedies' from over 'La Manche.' They even imported Joan Greenwood to give it that 'je ne sais quoi.' And of course she is as delightful as ever, albeit in a very untypical role as a Feuillade-type cat-suited burglar and general grifter. The determination of an honest oaf, played by Bourvil as a sort of annoyingly goofy French version of George Formby (but sans ukelele), to return her ill-gotten goods from whence they were purloined is the most amusing part of the proceedings.

Bourvil's rather tediously established ability to walk through walls enables him not only to discharge this moral duty with ease, but creates amusing discombobulation of the police as he repeatedly walks out of the jail where his eventually serious - if temporary - adoption of the criminal lifestyle, as the mysterious 'Garou-Garou', has landed him. But little fun is had with this newly-acquired glamorous Raffles-type activity - the film is all too anxious to see the fatally unimaginative hero 'save' the Joan Greenwood character from her wicked lifestyle.

He robs only to return the 'grisby', thus robbing us of the sort of cheerfully amoral and anarchic proceedings so beloved of the English style of whimsical comedy. It appears he is on a mission to demonstrate the moral superiority of his simple honesty to the world. This is French intellectualism stealing all the fun from what cries out for anarchic abandon.

I mean, how can you have so little fun with a character who discovers one day that he can walk through walls? Well maladroit and po-faced delivery of sententious observations on how Frenchmen should behave is one explanation. Another is that our would-be amusing idiot is chaperoned through his adventures by an unattractive, irrelevant and pompous 'artist' acquaintance, who regularly polices the fun so nothing can get out of hand! And I must say that Bourvil's character is more annoyingly precious, in his oafishness, than appealingly daft: This is a clown so balanced that he never takes a pratfall! He's that depressing French thing - a terribly dignified clown, like their narcissistic mimes.

In terms of invention, timing, wit - even romance - this French effort is far inferior to its English models. Some fine phrase- making cannot disguise a quite hopelessly constructed comedy, that wastes almost every opportunity presented by an amusing idea, that ultimately appears almost completely irrelevant to the lame proceedings.

Also the visual effects are abysmal. And the final transfer of the Bourvil character's walking-through-walls ability to Joan Greenwood's character only makes us imagine the lively action that must then have proceeded on the other side of that wall, and regret that we cannot see that film, with Miss Greenwood's English criminal chic in her cat-suit and depriving all the French burglars of their profits and their reputations... one imagines an union of French burglars, who are outraged by this foreign interloper. A romantic satire on the 'entente cordial' develops ... Well anyway, anything but the film we just sat through!

He walks through walls and she's a cat-burglar; as winning parleys go that has to be up there with Sinatra, Crosby and Cole Porter in High Society. Director Jean Boyer will always have a special place in my heart because of the films he made with Arletty, okay, they were bread-and-butter entries but French bread and Normandy butter is not to be sneezed at. Joan Greenwood had been in films for ten years and had things like Kind Hearts And Coronets, Whiskey Galore and The Bad Lord Byron on her cv when she played the cat burglar who bewitches Bourvil to the extent that he masquerades as a celebrated criminal to impress her - nothing new there, Gene Kelly posed as notorious pirate Mack The Black to impress Judy Garland in The Pirate three years previously. Boyer gives us enough set pieces to flesh out the one-trick pony aspect and the whole is a delightful and charming romp. Recommended.

Producer: Jacques Bar. Associate producer: Robert Dorfmann. Distributors: United Artists. Production Company: Cité Films. Copyright 21 October 1951 by Jacques Bar. An Arthur Sachson Enterprises production. New York opening at the Trans-Lux 60th Street: 18 September 1951. U.S. release: 21 October 1951. U.K. release: floating from July 1952. Australian release: 12 December 1952. Sydney opening as a support at the Century. 6,745 feet. 75 minutes. Censored by approximately 2 minutes in Australia.

Filmed simultaneously (by the same players and technicians) in French and English versions. French release title: Le Passe Muraille. Alternative French title: Garou Garou, Le Passe Muraille.

SYNOPSIS: A mild little French government official finds one night after a party that he possesses the curious ability to walk through walls. Resisting the temptation to make money out of his unique powers, he uses them instead to reform a young English girl who, stranded in Paris, has made a career of cat-burgling (wearing suitably black tights).

COMMENT: Although all the critics were evenly divided (they either really loved it or vehemently hated it), I really enjoyed this movie. In fact I'm really amazed that the critics were split right down the middle and that the film received any at all of those carping or totally unenthusiastic reviews.

For instance, I'm glad that "Picturegoer" loved it, but can't fathom why "The New York Times" hated it! We all saw the same movie. I thought Bourvil not only most amusing but outstandingly personable. If anything, I would submit that the screenplay did not fully exploit his talents. I liked the support cast too.

The only fly in the ointment was Joan Greenwood with all her usual affectations of voice and mannerisms. I will admit that Miss Greenwood can be a bit of a pain for newcomers who are not used to her rather unique style, but Bourvil is surely a comedian who should please anybody and who would evoke laughs from every single member of the audience!

OTHER VIEWS: A careless, makeshift production; the cast is half French, half Paris-American, no explanation being given for the discrepancy in accents; the dialogue is flat and employs American slang which rolls uneasily off the tongues of the French players; the comedy, moreover, is heavy-handed and thin. — Monthly Film Bulletin.