In the filmography of Maurice Tourneur, the comedy Fun in Barracks lies between a detective film, In the Name of the Law, another comedy, Lidoire, and a melodrama, The Two Orphans, confirming the director’s nonchalant savoir faire and eclecticism. Like Lidoire, Fun in Barracks draws on stories in a military setting from Georges Courteline’s book by the same name, which was also the inspiration for a play that Tourneur adapted for film in 1913. The barracks of the 51 regiment of the Chasseurs à cheval is the stage for a series of hoaxes, and Tourneur’s directing puts the spotlight on showman numbers that roll one after another like a chain of comedy routines: Raimu as the good- hearted Captain Hurluret and Fernandel as the soldier Vanderague harassed by his superiors. They are both hilarious: the former performs with the eyes and body of a groggy bear, the latter with the non- rhetorical candor of a great clown.
But the biggest casting surprise is discovering a twenty-eight-year-old Jean Gabin, years away from being a legend. He plays the part of Fricot, a soldier who is constantly punished and assigned to cleaning the barracks with his mate Laplotte – a role in which Gabin re-creates a variant of one of his comedy numbers from vaudeville. Dirty, ragged, coarse, always ready to make fun of his superiors and steal, Gabin/Fricot is one of the actor’s few comic appearances, though he already began to show signs of a more sober kind of expression.
What is especially striking about Tourneur’s satire, milder than Courteline’s, is the arrogance of the petty officers: in fact, the general (Henry Roussell) visiting the barracks is a fatherly, elegant gentleman. The film was edited by Tourneur’s son Jacques and colored using Pathé-color’s exclusive stenciling technique.
In 1954 the Courteline’s novel was adpated in an italian-french coproduction (L’allegro squadrone by Paolo Moffa, written by Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Michel Audiard, Marcel Camus and others, with Alberto Sordi, Vittorio De Sica, Paolo Stoppa, Charles Vanel and Jean Richard).

Roberto Chiesi