Boudu Saved From Drowning

So last night before I watched Sex And The City and after I watched Wheel of Fortune I watched Paul Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning. I can't really remember how I came upon this film on Netflix but was intrigued by the story line. About 10 minutes into it I realized that Down And Out in Beverly Hills was a remake of this. I was amazed. I had never read about this film and didn't know this. It was fantastic. The main difference between the old and new is that Nick Nolte in DAOIBH was a sort of intellectual wordy bum and in Boudu, Boudu is all action and not many words which is light years ahead of it's time but the few words he utters are hilarious. This again, just happened to be a Criterion re-release and I watched all the extras. What a delight. When this movie came out it, theatres would be closed down because of peoples disgust to Boudu. It was not that he puts the moves on the maid or his benefactor's wife but that he all but destroys the kitchen and rubs shoe polish all over the bed linens and worst of all he eats sardines with his hands! He is a barbarian, an anarchist, the embodiment of total freedom and actually it is hard to watch him. It is brilliant. There are lots of beautiful scenes of Paris, and one of the extras is a cool intellectual guided tour of Boudu's journey through Paris by way of a map of the city with narration. It's sorta hard to describe, but well worth the 5 or 10 minutes it took to navigate. Just a real joy.