Law is law
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Law is law |
| Original title | La loi, c'est la loi La legge è legge |
| Country of production |
France Italy |
| original language |
French Italian |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 96 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Christian-Jaque |
| script | Christian-Jaque Jacques Emmanuel Jean-Charles Tacchella Agenore Incrocci Furio Scarpelli Jean Manse |
| production | Alfredo Bini |
| music | Nino Rota |
| camera | Gianni di Venanzo |
| cut | Jacques Desagneaux |
| occupation | |
| |
Law is law (French: La loi, c'est la loi , Italian: La legge è legge ) is a French-Italian comedy film in black and white by Christian-Jaque . He wrote the script himself together with five other authors. The main roles are occupied by Fernandel and Totò . The work had its world premiere on September 17, 1958 in France. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the film was first released on April 3, 1959.
The outdoor shots were taken in the Italian municipalities of Venafro and Isernia in the Molise region .
action
In the small village of Assola, the border between France and Italy runs right through some houses. That is why you will find many things in this place twice, French and Italian, for example mayors, customs stations and of course the citizenship of the residents, even if the ties of kinship sometimes extend across the border. The French customs inspector Pastorelli and the Italian smuggler king Giuseppe Bonfanti, still best friends as young people, have been spider enemies since the latter spooked women from the former years ago. Ferdinand has been happily married for quite some time now, but he cannot get over the shame of the past. Therefore, it fills him with satisfaction when he catches his adversary red-handed in his forbidden activity. But Giuseppe pulls out all the stops available to him during the interrogation. He claims that Ferdinand was not entitled to arrest him because in reality he was not French at all. After all, he was born to an Italian mother and an unknown father in the kitchen of an inn in Assola. The house clearly belonged to Italy at the time.
Until proven otherwise, Ferdinand is now considered an Italian citizen. In this capacity he can of course no longer remain a French customs officer. And because there is no divorce under Italian law, his second marriage will simply be annulled. It gets even worse: he and his first wife are imprisoned for adultery. However, Giuseppe did not expect that. Because he longs for his wife, he suddenly wants to be locked up too.
Meanwhile it turns out that Ferdinand is not an Italian after all, because according to Italian law anyone who - as is the case with Ferdinand - has once served in a foreign army automatically loses their Italian citizenship. This fact resulted in Ferdinand's release, but he is now stateless. Desperate, he flees to the mountains.
It doesn't take long before Giuseppe regrets what he did to poor Ferdinand. He sets out to visit his adversary in the mountains and ask for forgiveness. In the meantime he has found out that the innkeeper in Ferdinand's birthplace had moved the boundary stone on his own initiative in order to attract tourists. In the end, the two fighters return to Assola in good harmony. Ferdinand is allowed to exercise his office as a customs officer again, and Giuseppe can try again to cheat the law.
criticism
The lexicon of international films draws the following conclusion: “The very well cast comedy lives through the situation comedy and the funny dialogues. Christian-Jaque has made a charming, nice film that doesn't want to make any lower demands. ”Dirk Jasper from the Film Lexicon comes to a similar assessment:“ An excellent comedy that thrives on situation comedy and amusing dialogues - a charming and highly entertaining film . ”The Wiesbaden film evaluation agency awarded the work the rating“ valuable ”.
source
- Program for the film: Illustrierte Film-Bühne , Vereinigte Verlagsgesellschaft Franke & Co., Munich, No. 4613
Publications
Pidax released the film for the first time on DVD on April 14, 2017 in German and French. The running time is 92 minutes.
Web links
- Law is law in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Photo at Cinema.de