Not satisfied with the first film version of Topaze (directed by Louis Gasnier in 1932 and starring Louis Jouvet), Marcel Pagnol directed a second version himself in 1936 using the same actor, Arnaudy, who had played the role on the sets of Marseilles. He was so displeased with this version that he took the prints out of circulation and in 1950 decided to produce and direct a third version, this time with Fernandel, whom he had already worked with in Angèle (1934), Regain (1937), Le Schpountz (1938), La fille du puisatier (1940) and Naì’s (1945). Marcel Vallèe and Pierre Larquey played the parts of the slimy and hypocritical school headmaster Muche and honest Tamise, whom they had already played in the 1932 version.
The play was created in 1928 for a performance at Variètès with Andrè Lefaur. It recounts the initiation of a naive, idealist professor who firmly believes in his mission as a teacher and shuns crooked opportunities. Fired by the headmaster for a series of circumstances, Topaze finds himself caught in a mechanism of corruption which will change him profoundly. So much so that he becomes more cynical and unscrupulous than the corrupt bourgeoisie he detested.
The story of this metamorphosis is divided in three parts: the first part shows the awkward, clumsy, bearded Topaze at the small school where he works with immense satisfaction and passion (he also has a fancy for the headmaster’s ambiguous, capricious daughter Ernestine). The second part takes place in the rooms of high society where the town councilor Castel-Vernac thinks he can use Topaze as a front man in order to conduct some tawdry business. But Topaze beats him at his own game and exploits his role as a “man of straw” for money. The directing concentrates on the movements of the actors’ faces and bodies, on the two-faced masks and words used by Castel-Vernac and Suzy Courtois (and Muche before them) to trick Topaze and convince him to do what they want. The contrast between the masks worn by everyone else and Topaze/Fernandel’s naive and truly shocked face (unmasked and thus defenseless) reveals the reality that the good teacher does not see: the indifference, cynicism and sarcasm of others. Topaze (an incredible performance by Fernandel) does not evolve, and his metamorphosis is brutally abrupt: the audience suddenly discovers that the former teacher has learned his lesson so well that he is another person. Shedding his beard he sheds also all his naivety and thus all his illusions. Pagnol’s film is an unmerciful study of character that has the grace of a “morality” play with a perfect, unrelenting rhythm of timing and dialogue. The initiation in the “school” of the upper-middle class takes place amid daily misdeeds and deceit, and the film ends with no solace for the viewer.

Roberto Chiesi