Le coq du régiment

Maurice Cammage was par excellence the past master of the military coarse comedy :”vive la classe” , ” la caserne en folie” , “les bleus de la marine” “la mariée du régiment ” ….It took French stupidity to new limits in the thirties ,but one can have a good laugh with them even today when the military service has become a thing of the past.”Le coq du régiment” recalls another film which depicts the joys of the grunts : “le tampon du capiston”(1930, remade in 1950); a case of mistaken identities .Ménard (Fernandel ) and Lavirette are foster brothers ,only the former is a private ,the latter a lieutenant who is also a handsome womanizer ; as he has problems with his jealous wife, he takes his foster bro as an orderly ( allowing him to escape from the clutches of a wicked warrant officer -it’s a pleonasm :in this kind of farce ,all the warrant officers are tyrants ). To solve the lieutenant’s problems with his wife,mistress,and soon-to-be lover ,a friend of his suggests he change his uniform (and his rank) with his orderly and it brings about quiproquos and misunderstandings galore.Fernandel was featured in numerous military farces; he never moved upstairs ; for once , he’s a lieutenant ,a false one, but it’s an improvement all the same !