The Sheep Has Five Legs [Le mouton à cinq pattes] **** (1954, Fernandel, Françoise Arnoul, Andrex) – Classic Movie Review 7629

Director Henri Verneuil’s 1954 French charmer The Sheep Has Five Legs [Le Mouton a Cinq Pattes] boasts an Oscar-nominated story and a brio multi-performance in six roles by the great Fernandel.

In the story, a charming French village needing good PR wants to attract the glare of media attention by arranging a reunion between its most ancient and venerable citizen, the vinegrower, and his five grandsons.

In a brio multi-performance, toothy-grinned, rubber-faced comedian Fernandel is a delight in one of his naughtiest but nicest films playing Édouard Saint-Forget the vinegrower as well as all of his quintuplet grandsons, Alain, Bernard, Charles, Désiré and Etienne. The versatile performance deservedly spread the incomparable Fernadel’s popularity way beyond his native France (he was born in Marseilles).

The film is a succession of funny vignettes, often knockabout and lowbrow, and there is a lovely segment with Louis de Funès as Pilate, an undertaker harassing one of his grandsons – a hypochondriac.

The film was Oscar nominated for Best Motion Picture Story for Henri Verneuil, Jean Marsan, Henri Troyat, Jacques Perret and Raoul Ploquin.

Also in the cast are Françoise Arnoul, Andrex, Édouard Delmont, Paulette Dubost, René Genin and Noël Roquevert.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7629

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