Fernandel vs Michel Simon: The Feud on the Set of Fric-Frac and its Impact on the Film’s Legacy – Available on OCS

2023-08-06 05:58:00

In 1939, Fernandel burst onto the screen with Arletty in the film Fric-Frac. On the set of the feature film now available on OCS, it had gone very badly with another famous actor.

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Fernandel was not only angry with Marcel Pagnol… On the set of Maurice Lehmann’s film Fric-Frac in March and April 1939 in the Éclair Laboratories and Studios of Épinay-sur-Seine, near Paris, the current would not have gone well with Michel Simon. So much so that they never went back together once more. According Allocinated, it was their playing partner Arletty who had to “play the reconciler”. This film telling the story of “a jeweler’s clerk, naive and fascinated by a frank-talking prostitute, who provides a couple of burglars with material for a smoking blow” is now available on the OCS platform.

Fernandel and Michel Simon, two stars who mightn’t stand each other

Initially, Fric-Frac was a play written by Édouard Bourdet in 1936 and performed at the Théâtre de la Michodière by Arletty, Michel Simon and Victor Boucher. But at the time of adapting it to the cinema, the latter was replaced by Fernandel. A rivalry will then arise between the main actor and the one who knows the project like the back of his hand, having played it on stage many times. According to Allociné, Michel Simon would have allowed himself to improvise, enough to annoy Fernandel to the highest degree. However, on the screen, we only see fire. Unfortunately, the two actors are no longer there to give their versions of the facts, to tell themselves behind the scenes of this epic shoot. Fernandel died on February 26, 1971, a few years before Michel Simon, who died on May 30, 1975.

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The adaptation of a successful play

Its two main actors have bowed out, but Fric-Frac continues to achieve some success on television, on platforms and in theater. In 2018, Michel Fau reassembled this show at the Théâtre de Paris. He gave the reply to Régis Laspalès and Julie Depardieu. “We tried to keep the picturesque and poetic side of those years”, confided Michel Fau during an interview with France 3. Perhaps the secret of success.

Article written in collaboration with 6Medias

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