La Traversée de Paris (film)

La Traversée de Paris
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Claude Autant-Lara
Produced by	Henry Deutschmeister
Screenplay by	Jean Aurenche Pierre Bost
Based on	"La Traversée de Paris" by Marcel Aymé
Starring	Jean Gabin Bourvil Louis de Funès
Music by	René Cloërec
Cinematography	Jacques Natteau
Edited by	Madeleine Gug
Production company	Franco-London Film Continentale Produzione
Distributed by	S.N.A Gaumont
Release date	26 October 1956 (France)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	France Italy
Language	French
Box office	$18,297 (US re-release)

La Traversée de Paris ("the trip across Paris") is a 1956 French comedy-drama directed by Claude Autant-Lara, starring Jean Gabin, Bourvil and Louis de Funès. The film is known under the titles: "Four Bags Full" (USA), "Pig Across Paris" (UK), "The Trip Across Paris" (International English title). It is set in occupied Paris in 1942 and tells the story of two men who defy the curfew to deliver pork for the black market. The film is based on the short story "La traversée de Paris" by Marcel Aymé.

The film competed at the 17th Venice International Film Festival, where Bourvil won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. The cynical portrayal of the occupation era was unconventional and made the film controversial upon the original release.

Action takes place in Paris during WWII in 1942. Unemployed Taxi-Driver, Marcel Martin makes his living delivering parcels on the black market. One day, he must carry by foot, to the other side of the capital, four suitcases containing pork meat. He goes to the basement of a grocer named Jambier and plays the accordion while the animal is butchered.

Martin then goes with his wife Mariette to the restaurant where he must find his accomplice. He learns that he has been arrested by the police. A stranger then enters the restaurant and on a misunderstanding, Martin invited him to share his meal and to work with him replacing his former accomplice.

This decision is quickly turning out as calamitous as this new character, named Grandgil, isn't very compliant. He first asks for a drastic increase in salary terrorizing the unfortunate grocer Jambier. Then he almost damages the bar, where the two accomplices are hiding from the police, and calls the patrons "poor cowards".

Grandgil then almost knocks-off a policeman in Martin's neighborhood. And later when escaping a German patrol, they end up taking refuge in the apartment of Grandgil, where Martin is stunned to discover that Grandgil is in fact a famous painter of some renown who has agreed to follow along mainly for his own entertainment.

Nevertheless continuing their path, they finally arrive at the delivery but find the door locked. Then they make such a racket that a German patrol arrives. In the Kommandantur where they are taken, a German officer recognizes the famous painter Grandgil ; and he is about to release both of them when an announcement of the assassination of a German colonel changes the situation allowing him only to save in extremis Grandgil, while Martin is sent to Germany for Compulsory Work Service (STO).