A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Blistering performances.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Some movies want to tell you a story. "Le Bossu" does not fall into that category : it clearly was made because it represented a safe financial investment and because it worked as a star vehicle for Bourvil and Marais. Technically speaking this is a well-made movie with slick direction, high production values and some fun performances, but it lacks drive and conviction. At times it's like watching enormously expensive paint dry.The central romance, between a hot-blooded yet decent knight-errant and his lovely young ward, has always struck me as unpleasantly inappropriate. It carries disquieting undertones of incest or pedophilia, even when the movie goes out of its way to indicate that the knight-errant never treated the girl with anything less than the most courteous benevolence. Bourvil provides the necessary comic relief while Marais does well as the said knight-errant. What a strange life Marais must have had : in his private life he was gay, while he earned his money by portraying he-man heroes of the "Step back, you villainous cur ! Would you dare to annoy a young lady of good family ?" variety. Paul Féval's source novel is better : it has far more wit, bite, fire and imagination, masterfully evoking a world of court intrigues, financial capers and swashbuckling adventures. Still, it is so clearly a "cape and dagger" novel that its appeal will be limited to people who, like me, enjoy the genre. (One gets born - or not - with this trait, one does not acquire it. It is purely genetic, like the ability to digest milk at an adult age.) Fun tip : the movie's story involves a baby girl of noble blood, growing up in anonimity. At the end of the movie the girl has become a charming beauty, about three or four years younger than her mother.

I love this original story and although it's frustrating I can't find a version of the book and the writer's son's sequels in English, I am ploughing through them in French which I expect any purist would tell me is what I should do anyway, and I've become an enthusiast for this engaging hero.Whilst I greatly enjoyed the delightful movie version with Daniel Auteuil which is how I first discovered Henri de Lagardere, I think this Jean Marais version is really the best - it keeps to the original better re storyline, and the script allows Marais to act Lagardere as he should be - swashbuckling and dynamic and already well known in Paris rather than Auteuil's lower key less sophisticated version. I also enjoyed the recent French TV series.

This is, of course, a much-filmed story like Robin Hood etc and each generation will have its favourite version. In my case I found the best thing about it was the colour and I advise potential viewers to avoid travelling to the cinema by bus lest they drive a hole through the plot. Jean Marais is no Errol Flynn or even, nearer to home, Gerard Philippe, who made a memorable Fanfan La Tulipe and given Marais' status as long-time lover of Jean Cocteau it may not be inappropriate to describe him as a swishbuckler. Bourvil is on hand to provide comic relief but the best you can give this is that it passes the time more or less painlessly.

A new version in the late nineties was released featuring Daniel Auteuil as the hero;it was entertaining but the actor was overshadowed by Lucchini's portrayal of the wicked cousin.In the 1960 version,,there's not such a problem.Jean Marais was par excellence the swashbuckler hero and ,like in "le capitan" ,Bourvil provides the movie with good comic reliefs.Marais is as convincing playing a dashing knight,fighting for a girl's name and fortune as he is pretending he is a hunchback.André Hunebelle,often despised by the intellectuals made entertaining stuff which today's children (and their parents) can still enjoy.