Oh, Mario! A cute, chamber French film about a beautiful and beautiful world where toy passions boil at the level of resentment of one lady to another. I think it was such films that got tired of watching Godard, Truffaut, Romer and especially Chabrol, who showed the world of the bourgeois in all its unattractiveness.
A certain farmer Mario masterfully shears sheep and weaves tails into mare pigtails. It's so dexterous that the queues of happy breeders line up for him. When Mario combs the wigs for the dolls, the toy ladies start slapping with plastic cilia. It is clear that as soon as our hero takes on women's heads, he will quickly make a career as the best female barber in the city. And in particular delight will be rich ladies in age, burning with the desire to order Mario at home.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this film was inspired by Patrick Suskind, turning the all-powerful hairdresser Mario into a perfumer Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Both characters have similar talents. Only one is too shy and not too smart, the second is too vain.
Unfortunately, Fernandel didn't have much to play. His character moves from one female hairstyle to another, the scenery changes: from a small hairdresser to a luxurious salon. The story might make some sense if it were spiced with even a pinch of social satire. Italian directors of the time would have done so. But not the French!
In 1956, Jean Boillet invited Fernandel to enter the same river for a second time and directed the same naive film “Lady’s tailor”.
5 out of 10