Classics beyond miscast : Pagnol's way.

César owns « Bar de la Marine » on Marseilles Vieux Port ; his son, Marius, has a girlfriend, Fanny ; Marius wants to see the world, he leaves Marseilles and Fanny pregnant ; Fanny marries unsuspecting older Panisse and deliivers a boy, Césariot ; Marius sees the world and does not like it, he returns ; Fanny remains faithful to Panisse ; Marius leaves again ; fast forward twenty years ; Panisse dies ; Marius tries a second return ; Césariot learns the truth about his real father ; he does not like it or him, but ultimately gets used to both ; Marseilles is one happy dysfunctional family richer.

« Marius », « Fanny », « César » : Marcel Pagnol’s Marseilles trilogy, originally written for the stage, then adapted to the screen.

First film, « Marius », is shot in 1931. Actors from Marseilles lead the cast. But when time comes to find a son for Raimu’s César, Pagnol does not play the local card. He chooses Pierre Fresnay, from « Comédie Française ».

Because Marseilles is short on young leading man talent ? Because a Southern accent is great for comedy but hopeless for romance ? To cater to Northern France and Paris ? To express the generational divide between father and son ? By mistake ? By challenge ? Because, to him, Pierre Fresnay is the perfect Marius ?

Fresnay’s real name was Laudenbach, still less a Marseilles housename than his pseudonym.

Result on screen was probably as ill-advised for hardcore Marseillais as the hiring of a Parisian soccer player by local OM team. To the modern viewer, strange casting goes nearly unnoticed : Pierre Fresnay is a great actor ; arguing with his father Raimu in « Bar de la marine », dressed in a black and white striped jersey, a scarf tied around his neck, he appears only marginally less at ease than, six years later -one after « César » brought the trilogy to its conclusion-, in the uniform of Captain de Boïeldieu, fluting himself to death in Renoir’s « Grand Illusion ».

Film soundtrack is so creaky that it resolves all concerns regarding the Fresnay’s high-pitched Northern voice and accents in general : all actors sound like a failed test of voice over the internet.

The actor’s age, thirty-four in « Marius », is potentially more disturbing, but eventually welcome, as his leading lady is thirty-seven and does not look one day younger.

Fanny is played by Orane Demazis, a much stranger casting choice than Fresnay, but easier to explain : she was Pagnol’s partner in life. To understate the case, her acting and beauty today appear dated ; to state it, she looks on screen like an ugly piece of terrible acting. Her career after she broke up with Pagnol showed general consensus about her limited abilities.

The son of Pierre « Marius » Laudenbach and Orane « Fanny » Demazis, Cesariot was born to grow up a casting hazard. In « César », Césariot is twenty and played by André Fouché. The actor’s talent did not inspire a second trilogy.

Marcel Pagnol directed « César », Marc Allégret took competent, uninspired, care of « Fanny », but « Marius » was the first and better film.

The choice of its director defied the odds : Alexander Korda. Compared to him, Pierre Fresnay looked and sounded like a a third-generation Marseillais.

Korda was born in Hungary ; he started his career there, moved to Austria, Germany, then the US. He filmed « Marius » during a brief stopover in France. He would soon invade Great Britain and become the country’s greatest producer.

Talk about adaptation skills. And the absolute need to be born in Marseilles to make justice to the city spirit...