Jean-Paul Le Chanois ,as anyone French cine buff past infancy should know,was the main Bête Noire of the New Wavelet;their simplistic put down overlooked his good movies,and the good ones are worthy of of investigation:if one can forget his failed " Les Misérables" and his sixties mediocre stuff,it is to his neglected worthwhile works that any fair review must address itself: "Messieurs Ludovic" ,"Sans Laisser D'Adresse" "Agence Matrimoniale""les évadés" ,even "le cas du docteur laurent" and his marvelous "Ecole Buissonnière" ,an effort every teacher of the world should see.;

In the sixties,though , this gardener is a minor but endearing final effort ;for Le Chanois was about to call it a day though he had still twenty years to live . Lovely filmed ,with sparkling colors, it depicts a place where time stood still : a suburb of Paris, with its gardens where Monsieur Tulipe grows flowers ,its cafés and its quietness,soon to be disturbed by the arrival of appartment buildings ;and a cinema which stood still too, deaf to the Nouvelle Vague's so called innovations -which often weren't :filming on location was used as soon as the silent age .

Monsieur Tulipe leads a peaceful life till the government claims arrears on his taxes .He does not work in a honest way : although he is a talented painter,it's a cover for shady business;" I've been in that business since I was born,says he,false good marks at school ,false furloughs in the army ,false papers during WW2-you can't blame me at all for that- and now forged banknotes" .

And then begins a very funny comedy ,devoid of vulgarity -as the "films guide "claims - : you should see the gardener ,on the First of May , buying a lily of the valley sprig to get some "honest " change ;or his godson's fiancé paying a fine to the gendarmes with a big forged banknote ;this banknote will pass from hand to hand .There's the rub: the smart fiancé urges her future husband to egg on his godfather to expand this lucrative business.

I would tone it down for Curd Jurgens' interventions: the "happening" on this playboy's luxury yatch displays a desire to be groovy ,trendy and the casino is a hackneyed trick.These scenes get in the way .But do not miss singer-songwriter extraordinaire Serge Gainsbourg -who also wrote the (indifferent) score- cast as a hip photographer.

But the ending ,as a precedent user has already pointed it out, makes up for it ; forget the highbrows, and do not deny yourself a good moment of fun.Grumpy Gabin is true to form and Liselotte Pulver is up to scratch.

After viewing the tantalising Brigitte Lahaie skin flick Education of the Baroness,I felt like jumping straight to my next French film viewing. Finding 1960's The Old Guard fascinating,I decided to go to the garden,and watch the third,and final rare Jean Gabin title I had.

View on the film:

Plucking tulips over multi-colour credits, director Jean-Paul Le Chanois & cinematographer Walter Wottitz introduce their flower to a peculiar atmosphere of Tulipe's relaxed time painting and catching up with locals having a brush of calm which paints over his underhanded,money-making ways (highlighted in a stylish opening,the goes on a tour of Tulipe's cash-changing ways.) Breaking Tulipe's laid-back ways with the arrival of Noël and Hilda, the screenplay by Alphonse Boudard/François Boyer and Jean-Paul Le Chanois stray from punchlines in their adaptation of René Jouglet's book for quirks, via the shaky team-up between the trio resulting in mad-dash attempts to keep their illegal money printing safe,and a poetic ending,which shows to each of them the true value of money. The life of the town, Jean Gabin gives a great, slippery performance as Tulipe,who is given an unassuming manner by Gabin, that stops people from ever asking what goes on in the garden of Argenteuil.