This is an excellent occasion to rediscover this gripping story of love, injustice, war, bravery and betrayal whose main protagonist is portrayed by the talented Dominique Paturel.
Le trompette de la Bérésina is a 8 x 15 to 26-minute black and white drama set during the Napoleonic wars and after. Produced by French pubcaster ORTF (Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française) especially for its 1966 Christmas holiday season, it was filmed during the summer of that year and aired daily on the Première chaîne in December 1966. Le trompette de la Bérésina is based on the namesake book, first published in 1865 by French author Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail (1829-1871). Ponson du Terrail's most famous creation, the adventurer Rocambole (1857-1870), was turned into a TV series by ORTF between 1964 and 1965. Directed by Jean-Paul Carrère, Le trompette de la Beresina was adapted by Michel de Ré (1). Actor, stage director and scriptwriter, he played a secret agent in Commandant X (1962-1965) and an eccentric private eye in Les dossiers de Jérôme Rendax (1965-1966). Both series were helmed by Jean-Paul Carrère.
Le trompette de la Bérésina starts in 1812. Anselme, a farm boy from Burgundy, is also a musician nicknamed le Galoubet (2). He doesn't want to be enrolled in Napoléon's army and go to war because Myonnette, the daughter of farmer François le Manchot, is expecting their child. But François would prefer her to marry Marcelin, now an officer. Lieutenant Marcelin makes Anselme arrested by the gendarmes and sent to Russia, where the young man ends up amongst the soldiers building a bridge on the Berezina river. Despised by his men, Marcelin wants to get rid of his rival once for all. He shots Anselme during a mission for the Emperor and decides to betray his country. Anselme le Galoubet is played by Dominique Paturel, an actor who started his career on stage and became popular overnight on television alongside Michel Le Royer in Le chevalier de Maison Rouge (1963). He was in Lagardère (1967), another hit of ORTF, starred in D'Artagnan (1969) and appeared in several Au théâtre ce soir (3) (between 1967 and 1984).
The voice of Dominique Paturel made him stay definitively in the heart of the public. He dubbed Michael Caine, Terence Hill, Frank Sinatra, Roy Thinnes, Lee Majors, Larry Hagman, Robert Wagner, George Peppard and many more. Actress Christiane Minazzoli (Myonnette) gives her character a surprising shakespearean touch in the last episode. The impressive resume of André Oumansky (Marcelin) includes films for Henri-Georges Clouzot, René Clément, Robert Parrish or Nikita Mikhalkov and TV productions such as Les cinq dernières minutes, Aux frontières du possible, The Hostage Tower, Champagne Charlie, A Tale of Two Cities or Highlander: The Series. Christiane Minazzoli and André Oumansky played together again in the film La nuit infidèle (1968). Michel de Ré is also the narrator of Le trompette de la Bérésina. ORTF presenter Renée Legrand plays Suzanne and does the announcements in episodes 1 to 7. The scenes near the Berezina were actually shot on the banks of the Loire, with fake ice blocks, carbonic snow and some astute photographic tricks.
The rest of the cast is composed of Olivier Hussenot (François), Nicolas Vogel (General Eblé), Roger Pigaut (Les chevaliers du ciel) as General Wittgenstein, André Reybaz (Napoléon), Robert Bazil (Thierry la Fronde) as Mathurin, Viviane Blassel (Nanette), Anne Rochant (Marceline), Sylvie Vaneck (Rose), Dominique Zardi (the Fantômas movies) as the 2nd gendarme, etc. With the participation of the Garde républicaine. Music composed and conducted by M. Philippe-Gérard. Yann Tardif is the head of production. Cinematography by Marc Fossard. Editing by Guy Fourmond and C. Jouveau du Breuil. The one-disc DVD set of Le trompette de la Bérésina from Elephant Films contains the 8 episodes, an interesting photo gallery and the trailers of other titles from the collection Les joyaux de la télévision, like Émile Zola ou la conscience humaine (1978), La juive du château Trompette (1974) or Les habits noirs (1967).
(1) Born Michel Gallieni, he was the grandson of the famous General Gallieni.
(2) A galoubet is a flute from Provence.
(3) Au théâtre ce soir (1966-1986) is a French television programme which showed pre-recorded plays.
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