Boudu Saved from Drowning

Michel Simon gives one of the most memorable performances in screen history as Boudu, a Parisian tramp who takes a suicidal plunge into the Seine and is rescued by a well-to-do bookseller, Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval). The Lestingois family decides to take in the irrepressible bum, and he shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations. With Boudu Saved from Drowning, legendary director Jean Renoir takes advantage of a host of Parisian locations and the anarchic charms of his lead actor to create an effervescent satire of the bourgeoisie.

France
1932
84 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
French
Spine #305

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Introduction by Jean Renoir
Interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
Excerpt from a 1967 Cinéastes de notre temps program, featuring Renoir and Michel Simon
French television conversation between director Eric Rohmer and critic Jean Douchet
Interactive map of 1930s Paris, highlighting the film’s locations
New and improved English subtitle translation
Plus: a new essay by Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner

Cover based on a theatrical poster

DVD 1 Disc $23.96 SRP: $29.95

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Introduction by Jean Renoir
Interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
Excerpt from a 1967 Cinéastes de notre temps program, featuring Renoir and Michel Simon
French television conversation between director Eric Rohmer and critic Jean Douchet
Interactive map of 1930s Paris, highlighting the film’s locations
New and improved English subtitle translation
Plus: a new essay by Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner

Cover based on a theatrical poster

Cast & Credits

Cast

Michel Simon: Boudu
Charles Granval: Lestingois
Marcelle Hainia: Madame Lestingois
Séverine Lerczinska: Anne Marie
Jean Gehret: Vigour
Max Dalban: Godin
Jean Dasté: The student
Jacques Becker: The poet

Credits

Director: Jean Renoir
Screenplay: Albert Valentin
Screenplay: Jean Renoir
After the play by: René Fauchois
Producer: Michel Simon
Producer: Jean Gehret
Producer: Marc Le Pelletier
Assistant director: Jacques Becker
Assistant director: Georges Darnoux
Cinematography: Marcel Lucien
Cinematography: Georges Asselin
Editing: Marguerite Renoir
Editing: Suzanne de Troye
Sound: Igor Kalinowski
Sets: Jean Castanier
Sets: Hugues Laurent

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Explore

Jean Renoir

Director

The son of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir was also a master of his medium: cinema. After making his mark in the early thirties with two very different films, the anarchic send-up of the bourgeoisie Boudu Saved from Drowning and the popular-front Gorky adaptation The Lower Depths, Renoir closed out the decade with two critical humanistic studies of French society that routinely turn up on lists of the greatest films ever made: Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game (the former was celebrated in its time, but the latter was trashed by critics and audiences—until history provided vindication). After a brief, unfulfilling Hollywood stint during World War II, Renoir traveled to India to make his first Technicolor film, The River, and then returned to Europe in the early fifties to direct three visually dazzling explorations of theater, The Golden Coach, French Cancan, and Elena and Her Men. Renoir persisted in his cinematic pursuits until the late sixties, when, after the completion of The Little Theater of Jean Renoir, a collection of three short films, he decided to dedicate himself solely to writing, leaving the future of the medium to those who looked to him in reverence.