The Baker's Wife (1938) User Reviews

A warm movie.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 8/10 · 18 September 2008]

This is a movie with a very warm and pleasant atmosphere. It has a childish innocence over it, like basically all these typical genre movies from the '30's seem to have.

It's atmosphere, story and characters make this a very pleasant and entertaining movie to watch. It has a very simple concept, in which a French baker's wife run of with a shepherd, after the first night they moved in to a small village, in the middle of the countryside. After this the baker refuses to make bread anymore. The villagers of course want their daily fresh bread so they together come up with a plan to get her back to the bakery. It all sounds very simple but thanks to its fine storytelling from director Marcel Pagnol it all works out real well. There also is of course more to the story, courtesy of some fine input from the movie its characters and actors portraying them.

It's a well cast movie, with French character actor Raimu in the main lead. The other cast members all have some very characteristic look over them, the way only the French can look. I'm not too happy about the casting of Ginette Leclerc though. She is supposed to be a very pretty woman in the movie but just look at the way Leclerc look...she is no natural beauty. Or perhaps her looks just were the idea of a true beauty, in the France of the 1930's.

It takes a while for the movie to pick up its pace and the movie also tends to drag on a bit in its middle part but in the many parts that the movie finds its right pace, the movie is a great one. It's a real enjoyable comedy, that is not the type of comedy that has some hilarious moments that will make you laugh out loud in it but it's more the type of comedy that tries to constantly entertain. It doesn't fail at that, thanks to the movie its very pleasant atmosphere, simplistic story and likable characters. Especially the movie its last halve, in which the villagers start to undertake action, is just great.

A fun and warm little movie.

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

for audience looking for any semblance of a progressive message apropos of a young woman's sexual awakening, THE BAKER'S WIFE is a lost cause

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 16 October 2019]

This classic French comedy from Marcel Pagnol is set in a sleepy Provençal village, a new baker Aimable (Raimu) arrives with his much younger wife Aurélie (Leclerc), 5 days in, the latter runs away with the virile shepherd Dominique (Moulin), which leaves the baker devastated, who always considers his wife distinctly asexual, thus is unable to prepare the daily bread for the townsfolk. Mustered by the marquis (Charpin) and the curé (Vattier), the whole village goes out to look for the carnal-knowledge obsessed lovers, when the wife finally returns, a moral tirade is delivered vehemently but in a cunningly oblique fashion by the baker, and once again, peace is resumed in the sleep village.

Noticeably engaging in the location shooting, THE BAKER'S WIFE continues Pagnol's literacy of melding realism and theatrics against the routine studio-bound stock-in-trade, although visibly, the camera movement feels a shade stilted during the exterior scenes, which might also be attributed to the fact that the movie is consisted of a series of long-winded......

incredibly charming story

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 21 July 2005]

I really liked this movie a lot--especially because it had such a great ensemble cast. This movie was absolutely stuffed to the brim with characters from this community to give the movie great life and charm. In particular, the acting by Raimu as the baker was dynamite. He is a one-namer (like "Cher") that looks like a slightly skinnier Oliver Hardy and manages to use a wide variety of facial expressions and body language to convey so much emotion. When his heart is broken by his philandering wife, you really find yourself feeling for the guy! Overall, it was extremely well-acted and well-written and I strongly recommend it. However, be forewarned that the videotape by Interama Video Classics is VERY poor quality AND they use white subtitles that are often very hard to read. I don't know why, but almost EVERY French film from the 1930s I have tried to watch on video is almost unwatchable due to the degradation of the print. I'm not sure why this is, but it could easily turn people away from classics like this movie, and that would be quite a loss, as Marcel Pagnol who wrote this film was a true artist and master of his medium.

The best of the Pagnol films

[Peekie · 10/10 · 24 January 1999]

My favourite of all the Pagnol films, including the recent ones, due to the timeless, moving performance by the great Raimu as the lovelorn baker. The French stars of that period have never been surpassed as character actors, and for this film the writer was a great character author.

Baker's Dozen

[writers_reign · 10/10 · 12 September 2006]

This one comes with a rep that almost dares you NOT to like it for none other than the Great Orson Welles declared it the greatest movie ever made and star Raimu the greatest actor. Welles is no slouch himself and many there are, including myself, who consider his own Citizen Kane to be in the all-time No #1 spot but, let's face it, old Awesome knows a thing or two when it comes to judging celluloid. This is, of course, a Marcel Pagnol production which presupposes several things; it will be set in the South of France barely a Long Shot from Marseille and it's twelve to seven to feature Raimu heading an ensemble cast of Pagnol regulars. So it is here with Raimu as the eponymous baker who has barely sold his first batch than his wife takes it on the Jesse Owens with the local stud. The smiles, if not outright belly laughs, on the faces of the villagers freeze pretty damn quick once they realize that no wife equals no bread which means that they set about locating and returning the wife. End of (very simple) story. But as someone once said it's the way you tell them and Pagnol has Scherezade beat seven ways from the middle; once again as in his celebrated trilogy (Marius, Fanny, Cesar, in case you just got here via a wormhole) he evokes an entire community with just a few strokes of the pen or, in this case, lens, so that what we have is a lovingly painted portrait of a small town not a million miles from the one Jack Ford devised for The Quiet Man and complete with a richly assorted set of residents. The closing scene where the errant wife ignites the fire in the oven may be a tad symbolic but when it occurs in such a warm film who cares.

A Portrayal of Failings and Forgiveness

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 17 May 2021]

This little French film from the Thirties is sweet and sharp as well. The village has a new baker, and bread being the staple of their lives, he becomes the local celebrity. He has a pretty wife who works hard. He is a rather fat, homely man who worships her, even though there is little physical love between them. The people in town ultimately care more for his bread than him. So during a single day, they parry and thrust around him, trying to figure out what to do to raise his spirits. There is a vacuous, know it all priest who pontificates about everything but who has no trouble benefitting form the kindness of his flock. He has all the answers but no answers at all but he maintains an elevated position. But the baker is the character most admirable. He is forgiving. He is faithful. He sees the world for what it is although he loses control at one point. The ending is not maudlin. The townsmen still want the bread more than anything. But they are also happy for him.

Give us this day our daily bread.

[brogmiller · 10/10 · 11 May 2020]

Such a pity that over eighty years on this undisputed classic from the Golden Age of French cinema has attracted so few reviews but glad to see that most of them are appreciative and full of praise.

Before an unfortunate rift in their professional relationship Marcel Pagnol and Jean Giorno enjoyed one of the most fruitful partnerships in the history of film.

The most renowned of their collaborations is undoubdtedly 'The Baker's Wife' which Pagnol has adapted and considerably enlarged from an 'episode' in Giorno's novel 'Blue Boy'. The casting of Raimu who had already immortalised César in Pagnol's Marseilles trilogy is the icing on the cake.

The story is simply told. Aimable the baker is married to a much younger Aurelie. She runs off with the local hunk and Aimable refuses to bake any more bread until she returns. Faced with this crisis the villagers set about getting her back. Husband and wife are eventually reconciled in one of the greatest scenes ever put on film and Aimable resumes baking 'le pain extraordinaire'.

Raimu's performance as Aimable transcends the art of acting and voluptuous Ginette Leclerc is perfect as Aurelie. She went on to excel in 'Le Corbeau' but thereafter her career suffered from accusations of collaboration. Great supporting cast notably Fernand Charpin and Robert Vattier.

This film was a resounding success in America, not only winning the New York Film Critics Circle for Best Foreign Film but clocking up a record-breaking seventy-five week run in New York alone.

The rich characterisations plus the combination of comedy and pathos make this one of the handful of films that can truly be called sublime.

Let us leave the final words to Albert Einstein: 'It is the finest, the most human film that I have ever seen'.

The Baker's Wife

[jboothmillard · 5/10 · 30 June 2018]

I knew nothing about this French film before I found it listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was rated well by critics, and I hoped it would be something worthy of its placement in the book. Basically in an idyllic Provencal village in the south of France, Aurélie (Ginette Leclerc) is the young and beautiful wife of the new baker, Aimable (Raimu). But the baker is devastated when he finds his wife has left him, she has run off during the night with a handsome young shepherd, Dominique (Charles Moulin). The baker tells the villagers that she has left suddenly to see her mother, but they are not fooled, and their efforts to console him are shunned. He goes to the Sunday mass, and is upset by what seems an unfeeling sermon by an inexperienced young Priest (Robert Vattier), after which he goes to a café and gets publicly drunk. The heartbroken baker can no longer bake bread anymore, so Marquis (Fernand Charpin), who is the local landowner, and the Schoolteacher (Robert Bassac) take the situation in hand, with the priest they arrange a public meeting to discuss solutions. The people decide to mount an exhaustive search to find the baker's wife, as they want to regain their daily bread. One of the people does a report a sighting, she is seen in a glade with the shepherd, naked. The priest and the schoolteacher are chosen for the delicate task of persuading her to return, the shepherd flees, and the priest takes her to a quiet place, which the schoolteacher returns with the good news that she has been found. The priest reads her the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery, after this he forgives her and takes her home. The first word the baker's wife says to her husband is "Sorry", he forgives her, but he cannot resist talking about young shepherds who charm her, love her and leave her. It is a simple story of a faithless wife tempted by another man, and the local people working together to help the baker, so he will provide them with their produce, the feeling of the communal atmosphere works well, it is very old-fashioned, including its use of black-and-white, but if it was supposed to be funny, I wasn't laughing much, all in all it's a reasonable comedy drama. Worth watching!

Raimu

[boblipton · 9/10 · 19 February 2019]

In a town where the priest and the teacher argue, where neighbors wrangle because this one's trees as throwing shade on the other's giant cabbages, where no one talks to anyone else for reasons their grandfathers didn't remember, where the last baker hanged himself, there's a new baker in town. It's Raimu, and his bread is magnificent. His wife, pretty Ginette Leclerc promptly runs off with a handsome shepherd. Raimu immediately goes to pieces and the town is split between mocking him, calling her a tramp and worrying about where they'll get bread.

One of the stories about this movie is that Marcel Pagnol wanted Joan Crawford for the role of the baker's wife. She declined on the grounds that she didn't speak French. The other story is that after the war, Orson Welles asked Pagnol for an introduction to Raimu. He was told Raimu was dead and wept. I can understand the reaction. Raimu is so clueless and sad and yet very funny in the role. Any man who has had a woman he loves leave him without any warning can sympathize, even as he looks at Raimu and laughs.

Raimu could fill this movie by himself, yet there are other good roles: the local nobleman who has seven young women living in his chateau; the priest who mouths platitudes without understanding anything; the women who gossip and wrangle among themselves; the old man who has found Mlle Leclerc, but has to tell the story in his own, endless way.

I'd like to have seen Miss Crawford in the role. She would have aced the physical acting, and if she couldn't be coached in the thirty or forty words the character speaks, they could have looped her sides. No one could have replaced Raimu in this magnificent, sad comedy.

The best of Pagnol's films?

[richard-1787 · 10/10 · 13 August 2007]

Along with Marius, La Femme du boulanger is at the top of the list of Pagnol's films, which is to say that it is among the best films ever made. (This is not just my opinion; evidently Orson Welles said the same thing.) It is a "typical" Pagnol film, in that the plot is rudimentary at best. All the interest is the characters and their dialogue. And, despite very good performances by several of the supporting characters, this film achieves greatness because of the dialogue Pagnol gave Aimable (the baker) and the way Raimu delivers it. A mixture of the most moving pathos and the funniest comedy, the Baker is one of the great characters in film. (Trust me, the chapter in Giono's novel that served as the ostensible "inspiration" for this story is negligible. The genius is all Pagnol's.) The scene that every Frenchman knows is the last one, when Aimable takes out his anger at his wife's infidelity on their cat, Pomponette, but that is an atypical moment in this movie. It is all about Aimable's suffering, at the hands of his wife but also as a result of the way the town treats him. And Raimu conveys that suffering as only the greatest actors have: with understatement.

Marius is funnier and has greater variety of character. But La Femme du boulanger shows what a great director and screenwriter can do with great actors. Movies get no better than this.

Beautiful poem on screen

[sb-47-608737 · 10/10 · 23 April 2019]

It is an incredibly romantic poem that has been made into a silver screen story. In Urdu, there is a type of poem - Ghazal - the song that lovers sing when they are apart. This movie is one which could be equated to it.

It is a village - a very small one - in which no two persons - either gender - sees eye to eye - and that includes the two who should - the Vicar and the teacher - who greatly dislike each other, and of course there is a great sinner there, the marquis of the territory, who has four 'nieces' living with him. Of course all know, and he too doesn't hide the fact about the relationship between him and his supposedly nieces. But he is incorrigible despite all the exhortation by the vicar (and he does explain why, and one can sympathise with his human - well one can call frailties).

In this village arrives a middle age and not too handsome baker (Raimu) with his lovely and young (enough to be his daughter, as he tells her later) wife, Aurelie (Ginette Leclerc). Her love/romance-less life is awakened by a young and handsome shepherd Dominique (Charles Moulin) and she elopes with him. It all happens quickly and the rest of the movie deals with the suffering of the husband and the behaviour of the villagers. First natural, contemptuous and contemptuously sarcastic towards the cuckolded husband, the matters change, when they find that the baker has stopped baking. With the 'daily Bread' now gone, the only way is to search and bring the wife back to him, and in this effort all the enemies (including the Vicar and the teacher) bury their enmity. However that, and the ending is only consequential. The main thing that makes this exquisite is the pain and suffering of the cuckolded husband - and his feeling towards the wife that has betrayed him (and his still care, and support for her) - and even though he expresses his bitterness - in the end, allegorically, but not hidden to the audience - on or off screen - but still he is ready to forgive and forget - despite the wound inflicted - unlike any of the others - including the Vicar, who does preach the 'First stone' principle, but prefers that it - the confession and pardon of the sinner-ess, if caught - takes place in some one else's vicarage, not his. Only one who probably understand and really sympathises is the devil's disciple of the area, the Marquis, but as he has hinted, he too suffered from the affliction, or may be lack of it - though it is mentioned as love of flesh by Vicar - but really it was much more subtle and beautiful. The story, a few times might seem moving slow - especially at may places where it was almost monologue of the husband - but really can't be sped up - else it would lose the poetic quality - and added to it, it has some very witty dialogues - a few could be (and was, by the Vicar), blasphemous. Came across the movie just by chance - and I wonder why this doesn't figure in the "Movies before you die" lists.

French comedy full of joy and feeling

[ecapes · 9/10 · 4 March 2022]

I was not aware of this warm-hearted comedy, but I am so glad I watched it. Made in France in 1938, it is full of genuine characters who would never have passed by the Hayes Code censors in the United States at the time. A small French village has suffered through first a poor baker, and then no baker at all. Now the villagers rejoice at the arrival of a new and talented baker, along with his young and very pretty wife. Disaster strikes in less than a week, when the baker's young wife suddenly runs away with a handsome young shepherd. The baker is devastated, and worse from the point view of the villagers, he loses the will to bake.

While pivotal to the plot, the wife of the title is only one minor character in a film full of delightfully exaggerated characters. There are those who carry on cordial feuds that have lasted generations, on the assumption that "there had to be a good reason", while others are quick to start new ones. There is the agnostic schoolteacher, the earnest young priest, the entitled local landowner, the judgmental spinster, the long-winded storyteller, and so forth. None of these characters are presented with anything less than good-natured affection and delight. In a different film, the mockery some of the characters aim at the distressed baker could easily have tipped into cruelty, but meanness is never felt.

Even in a cast full of delightful over-the-top characters, the lead Raimu, as Aimable the baker, stands out in every scene. He is the good-natured everyman, playing a comedic character who also remains fully believable. His genuine pain and disbelief at the unexpected disappearance of his wife is always felt, even while the film shows us the humour in every situation. The scene in which Aimable and his wife finally come face-to-face again is masterfully played. I intend to search out other films made by this French star.

This joyful film is a not just fun to watch, but will leave you with both a smile on your face and a warm spot in your heart.

What people won't do for their bread!

[ilovesaturdays · 9/10 · 14 April 2020]

Quite a charming little film! Personally, I liked the village & the eccentric characters much more than the actual story. Right from the first scene we realize that the story is set in a village with picturesque surroundings. Then come the residents & all of them are quirky in an endearing way. Most people have been living in the village for generations and sometimes the family feuds go such a long way back that no one remembers how they started. And the logic for maintaining the enmity is simple, "If the feud has lasted for so long, it must've been about something important!" The schoolmaster chastises such reasoning & calls people silly. However, in a little while we witness an argument between him & the pastor (the two so-called learned people of the community) and then those two also seem silly! We also see a fight between 2 farmers regarding the position of trees & gardens! One of the farmers gets so heated up that he even tells his friend that the latter should spit on the former's face should he ever speak to the other farmer!

Besides the obvious things that this funny little community lacks, what they need almost desperately is freshly baked bread. In comes a middle-aged baker (very expertly played by Raimu) with his young wife. What's more is that he's a good baker & the people are ecstatic to get good bread for which they sometimes had to travel for miles in the past.

However, the respite to the villagers is too brief because the next day, the baker's young wife runs away with a handsome shepherd. The baker is heart-broken and can't bake anymore. Now, the cuckoldry is no longer a laughing matter for the villagers! So, they forget their animosity and form a ragtag army to search for the baker's wife. The shepherd runs away when he realizes that they've been discovered and the errant wife is returned to her loving husband.

More than the storyline, it's the village & the residents that steal the show. The characters play off each other very well and you feel like a part of this weird little community. The whole thing has a rustic, old world charm. Not to be missed!

La femme du boulanger review

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 22 April 2020]

I must be missing something here: the potential for a gentle, winning comedy amongst the quirky characters of a small village is there, but Pagnol allows the scenes to go on too long, and most of the characters - with the exception of Raimu's baker, who, in his Sunday suit, looks like a fat and ageing Charlie Chaplin - are petty and selfish. The message of forgiveness is commendable, but the act itself comes across as the behaviour of a vulnerable innocent ripe for exploitation.

Baking love

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 24 April 2020]

Know Marcel Pagnol best from his script writing for the wonderful Marseille trilogy (comprising of 1931's 'Marius', 1932's 'Fanny' and 1936's 'Cesar) adapted from his stage play. He also directed, brilliantly, 'Cesar' and anybody who hasn't seen either of those three films should do so before watching 'The Baker's Wife'. That way you know what to expect, as the same qualities can actually be seen here too. Also it has Raimu, who was in all three of those films and so wonderful in them.

'The Baker's Wife' is every bit as good as all three films in the Marseille trilogy, a little better than 'Fanny' and 'Cesar' and on the same level as 'Marius', and essential Pagnol and Raimu. Even if it is not quite as complex or as emotionally impactful as those films. And for all the same reasons as to what made those films so good. It is amazing that someone originated in theatrical/stage origins and then went on to become an important French film-maker when the transition from silents to talkies was starting to develop.

First and foremost, there is nothing stagy about the production values, amazing considering some involved like all three films in the Marseille trilogy started their careers in theatre or music hall beforehand. The locations are beautiful and very naturalistic, the never confined but never overblown photography opening up what could easily have been too much of a filmed play equally beautifully. Vincent Scotto's score is typically whimsical and vibrant and Pagnol's direction is never static or overly theatrical, he stays true to his roots while opening up the drama enough so it does feel cinematic enough.

Script-wise, 'The Baker's Wife' has amusing moments but in a gentle and gently witty way rather than in a broad or juvenile one, which suits the material beautifully, and lots of charm and emotion too. Any tonal shifts don't jar and it doesn't come over as awkward or talk heavy. The story is like with all the Marseille trilogy immensely charming and never creaky, also found it easy to be emotionally invested by it and really appreciated its humanity. Something that Pagnol was very good at.

As well as providing richly developed characters that are relatable in their strengths and flaws in situations that are hardly out of date today. It is very easy to warm to Raimu's character and quite a lot of it is down to Raimu's wonderfully nuanced and moving performance. In a film where all the actors suit their roles very well, though Raimu is in a different league to everybody else.

Overall, wonderful. 10/10

Marcel Pagnol's Comedy Classic About Marriage and Love

[springfieldrental · 8/10 · 17 January 2024]

French director Marcel Pagnol had a unique way of composing his films. His best example is September 1938's "The Baker's Wife." Pagnol's style of filmmaking consisted of full shots of all his characters who are captured within the frame. He has them conversing in long takes without resorting to any cutaways. Despite his spare scenes, Pagnol was able to convey his message, displaying an entire range of human emotions to propel his plot forward.

"It is a slice of French life from the past that is timeless in its telling," praised film reviewer Chanan Stern. "It is one of those movies that can and should be watched many times." Pagnol, a famous playwright in the 1920s before turning to film in the early 1930s, is mostly known for his 'Marius' trilogy, especially 1932's "Fanny." Adapting one of the stories from Jean Giono's 1932 novel 'Blue Boy,' "The Baker's Wife" follows baker Aimable (Raimu), who's a recent arrival to a French village. He sets up a bakery shop to replace a recently shuttered one. All the villagers love his bread, including the Marquis (Fernand Charpin), who sends his shepherd (Robert Vattier) to fetch 30 loaves every week. The shepherd attracts the eye of Aurelie (Ginette Leclerc), the baker's attractive young wife. She and the shepherd slink out of town, much to the distress of her husband. He gets drunk and stops making bread. A catastrophe is in the making as the querulous townspeople, who always bicker amongst themselves, agree on one thing and that is to bring back the baker's wife so they can buy their daily bread.

"The Baker's Wife" was a make-busy project for Pagnol's film crew after a previous production using his studio was cancelled, leaving a two-month gap until the next movie was scheduled to be shot. Pagnol had an unusual habit of shaping his stories on the personalities of his actors. He lived with his cast and film crew during the duration of the shoot, ate his meals alongside them, and played games between setups. The director/writer was so familiar with his actors he would shape and rewrite his scripts daily on the basis of their mannerisms and temperament. The nexus of "The Baker's Wife" was actor Raimu, who was Cesar in the 'Marius' trilogy. Raimu had to be coxed to play the baker after he and Pagnol had a falling out. Actress Ginette Leclerc stepped in as an intermediary between the two to patch things up. Raimu ended up giving an unforgettable performance reflecting the immense pain he experiences by his wife running off with another man. "The poignancy comes from the situation - this poor man, who so easily makes himself lovable on screen, is broken in front of us," notes film reviewer Erik Beck. Orson Welles, impressed by Raimu's performance, called him "the greatest actor in the world."

"The Baker's Wife" was acknowledged as the Best Foreign Film of the year by both the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics. The Pagnol film is included in the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' book.

A crap story of a foolish cuckold. Contrary to Erich Von Stroheim's excellent 'Foolish Wives'.

[SAMTHEBESTEST · 4/10 · 9 March 2021]

The Baker's Wife (1938) : Brief Review -

A crap story of a foolish cuckold. Contrary to Erich Von Stroheim's excellent 'Foolish Wives'. I don't care how many good reviews this film has got and how many people have actually liked the film, i just hate it. I wonder how some silly people even liked this unacceptable and childish film, a moment of gag dedicated to all those duffers. A small village rejoices at the arrival of a new baker. But when his young wife runs off with another man, he is unable to keep baking and the village is thrown into disarray. However funny it looks, it has ever more funny characters to laugh at but not for the comedy but for the insensibility. I am sure those critics and people who have liked this film must have behaved with their wives the same way as the Baker did in the film, Lol. How silly and stupid writting it was. How am i supposed to accept the character of a Baker who has been made Cuckold by her wife and still doesn't understand what she has done. How can he keep loving her and forget everything just like that? And how on earth the same stupid fella suddenly breaks his silence with intellegent words on his pets for the same thing but not on his wife. Was the animal more guilty than his wife? It suddenly reminded me of Stroheim's silent drama 'Foolish Wives' (1922) where he portrayed the same story but with more seriousness and more sensitivity. It was a great lesson too but here in Baker's Wife, it's all childs stuff. Wait a minute, I am not sure whether even childrens will enjoy it or not. Pagnol's most pathetic film in my opinion, not in cinematic sense but the writting was a big disaster. Overall, it's a fun in childish way but high level of dumbness is enough to skip it. Watchable only for the fools, for the dumbos and for the silly people. Luckily, i am staying away from them.

RATING - 4/10*

By - #samthebestest