Banana Peel (1963)

Waste of time

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I really like Jean-Paul Belmondo, very much, but not in this movie, it's boring and has no point of attraction. In vain, there are still some very good actors, such as Jeanne Moreau, Alain Cuny, Gert Fröbe, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Claude Brasseur, the story is fad, salt-free and pepper-free. Marcel Ophüls, the director, does not really have the 7th art in his pocket. He would have done better to deal with something else. "Banana Peel" is neither comedy, nor adventure, nor suspense, it's just a waste of time.

Peau de banane is only watchable thanks to its top-notch cast, but they cannot make it unforgettable. There is simply no rhythm in the plot, stuff happens and there never is a consistent effort to come up with a real twist so it is all boringly linear.The worst is that with this cast you hope something will eventually happen, so you seat the whole movie through and unfortunately this only helps to prove it is entirely devoid of imagination, snappy situations or even finely chiselled characters.I would say crook comedy is basically an easy genre just like heist movies, yet you have to really try to make it interesting. It cannot be the story of a sting only with minor bumps. I can't even think of one great scene - let alone a brilliant one. So this movie fully deserves to have fallen into oblivion: it is a real time-waster.

I hope that another version of this film eventually makes it to DVD, as the existing DVD is an abomination! Although the film was co-written and directed by Marcel Ophüls and stars Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Paul Belmondo (all indicating it's a quality production), the film is undone in two major ways. First, the film is dubbed into English and there is no original French version with subtitles. As a film purist, I hate that. I also fond it strange when French actors were dubbed. When they spoke with Germans in the film, suddenly they had a strong German accent. When they spoke with people in French, they didn't have a trace of the French or German accent! Second, the DVD appears to have been made from a poor videotape! It's grainy and blurry throughout. Don't you think that these problems should clearly be spelled out on the DVD case so you don't get tricked into buying a film like this? Fortunately for me, I rented it from Netflix and am thrilled I didn't spend money to buy this! Overall, the film was somewhat enjoyable but I just lost interest--mostly because the entire thing looked so sloppy. Again, most of this was really the fault of the DVD copy--not the original film. Perhaps if they ever release this in the US I'll try watching it.