If you're a comic book artist or a graphic illustrator, and if you want to adapt your work so that it becomes an animation movie, you need to be sure that your work will survive such an adaptation ; you also need to be sure that you've got the right skill set and experience. Otherwise you might be in for a rude awakening. (An example : Gary Larson drew excellent cartoons, but the animation movies based on these cartoons are far lower in quality.) If you want to adapt your work so that it becomes a full-length comedy with actual flesh-and-blood actors you need to be more cautious still : what was witty might become bland, what was cheeky might become cruel, what was exuberant might become grotesque, and so on. And of course you'd be facing major hurdles with regard to pacing, timing, overarching narrative and so on.
"The street without law" is a prime example of an adaptation which does not work - perhaps because it is too litteral, too faithful ? Anyway, it is clearly inferior in quality to Dubout's graphic work. Compare it, say, to the page-sized collection of little cartoons devoted to the French police, drawn for "Marianne" in 1934 : the paper page is far better. (Cops and robbers were a recurring theme in Dubout's work. He was also strangely obsessed by the idea of very large, very domineering women towering over their husbands.)
The result is difficult to watch ; it's a mess of grotesque characters, cardboard motivations, outlandish costumes, half-baked pastiche and 19th-century vaudeville. (Still, there was an exuberant dance scene which reminded me strangely of the celebrated dance contest in Spielberg's "1941".) Perhaps it is best not to watch it as a movie, but as some kind of surreal dream or drunken vision. Or simply study it as a cautionary tale - this is what happens when artistically gifted people think that they can handle every art form with equal facility.
Perhaps a few words about the late Albert Dubout (1905-1976). During the 1930's, Dubout reached considerable fame as a caricaturist, working for a variety of newspapers and satirical magazines. He also illustrated a number of books. He was still very popular in the 1950's. Lovers of French cinema may have encountered him as the artist who drew movie posters and illustrations for the work of Marcel Pagnol, such as "La Pétanque sur la Canebière" for "Fanny", which shows a teeming, frantic mass of fans observing a pétanque game. Watch the illustration and you'll learn a lot about his style and themes.
Albert Dubout's work seems to have been largely forgotten ; perhaps it's ripe for a new wave of admirers ? I'm not a particular fan of his oeuvre, but it deserves more recognition than it gets anno 2019...
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