The Italian Straw Hat (Un chapeau de paille d’Italie)
Directed by Rene Clair
Written by Rene Clair from a play by Eugene Labiche and Marc Michel
1928/France
Films Albatros
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube
“A hat is an expression of a woman’s soul. It is something that she wears on her head, but it belongs to her heart. It is the keynote of her personality, the finishing touch that makes her look beautiful, smart, and sure of herself” – Lilly Dache.
YouTube is a treasure trove of silent movies. I have been wanting to get to this one for a long time and it did not disappoint.
On the day of his wedding, a man (Albert Prejean) is driving through the countryside when his horse happens to chew up a lady’s straw hat. Now this lady was married and was engaged in a dalliance with a military officer behind a bush. The military officer is a real hot head. He threatens to destroy everything in the man’s home if he does not produce an identical hat. He threatens to kill the man in a duel if he compromises the reputation of the lady in any way. The many people involved in this saga do not share a single brain cell between them and are accident-prone to boot. So …
This one is a prototypical frantic French farce and is pretty darned funny. It gets progressively more complicated. Prejean is quite a versatile actor and is hilarious here. I prefer Clair’s early sound films but liked this very much. The story was later made into an opera.
No clip so here’s a trailer for a retrospective
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I am traveling to Washington State for my brother’s wedding but may very well continue posting reviews.
