Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) - Episode 2

What do a satirist science fiction writer from the early 1600s, a popular French play from 1897, a pulp fiction story from the 30s about a Chicago gangster, a Steve Martin film from the late 80s, a pop musical about a teenager working at a fast food restaurant, and a Disney Channel film about a rapper all have in common? Okay, this is a rhetorical question since the answer is literally in the title, but the answer is Cyrano de Bergerac.

Cyrano de Bergerac was actually a real guy. 

The real CDB

He lived from 1619 to 1655, and he did have a big nose—he just didn’t look like Pinocchio.

I'm not sure why the nose
supposedly makes him ugly.

  He was a member of the French military, but was also a novelist, writing satirical science fiction novels about fantastic trips to the sun and moon. An excerpt from Evan Eisenberg’s The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa on Google Books helped me find this part of Voyage to the Moon:

“As I opened the Box, I found within somewhat of Metal, almost like to our Clocks, full of I know not what little Springs and imperceptible Engines: It was a Book, indeed; but a Strange and Wonderful Book, that had neither Leaves nor Letters: In fine, it was a Book made wholly for the Ears, and not the Eyes. So that when any Body has a mind to read in it, he winds up that Machine with a great many Strings; then he turns the Hand to the Chapter which he desires to hear, and straight, as from the Mouth of a Man, or a Musical Instrument, proceed all the distinct and different Sounds, which the _Lunar_ Grandees make use of for expressing their Thoughts, instead of Language.

“When I since reflected on this Miraculous Invention, I no longer wondred that the Young--Men of that Country were more knowing at Sixteen or Eighteen years Old, than the Gray-Beards of our Climate; for knowing how to Read as soon as Speak, they are never without Lectures, in their Chambers, their Walks, the Town, or Travelling; they may have in their Pockets, or at their Girdles, Thirty of these Books, where they need but wind up a Spring to hear a whole Chapter, and so more, if they have a mind to hear the Book quite through; so that you never want the Company of all the great Men, living and Dead, who entertain you with Living Voices.”

Basically, Cyrano de Bergerac predicted the audiobook before even the phonograph was invented.

By the way, those clips are from Georges Melies’ A Trip to the Moon, which was sadly based mainly on Jules Verne’s novel From the Earth to the Moon from what I understand, not those of C.D.B., though Verne did briefly reference Bergerac’s work in his book.

But alas, Cyrano de Bergerac would be doomed to be remembered, not as a science fiction writer (who was also possibly gay), but as the dueling lover with a giant nose with a wit and panache that would put Tony Stark to shame.

In 1897, Edmond Rostand wrote his play Cyrano de Bergerac, which is where everything you might think you know about Cyrano comes from. Here’s the basic plot: Cyrano is in love with Roxanne. But Cyrano has this gigantic nose, which apparently makes him unattractive. Cyrano meets this guy named Christian, who’s about the handsomest guy in the world and also in love with Roxanne; unfortunately, he’s kind of dumb. The two guys realize that with Cyrano’s brain and Christian’s beauty, they’d be the perfect guy, so they form a plan where Cyrano will tell Christian what to say to Roxanne. Roxanne falls in love with Christian, but then tells him that she loves him for his heart, not his looks. Ouch. Then Christian dies in battle, and Roxanne eventually figures out that it was Cyrano she was in love with all along. Unfortunately, she figures the big secret out right between when Cyrano is murdered and when he finally dies, so…happy ending?

Fun fact: I said earlier that Cyrano had “panache.” Panache, which according to Google means both a “flamboyant confidence of style or manner” and “a tuft or plume of feathers” was a French word that was introduced to the English language because of Cyrano de Bergerac.

The film I’m focusing on today is the 1950 adaption of Cyrano de Bergerac, called, well, Cyrano de Bergerac.

The movie was, fortunately for us, filmed in English, using a 1923 translation by Brian Hooker. Critics pointed out that it was basically a filmed stage play—though there is an action scene that was originally only referenced offstage, but in the film appears onscreen as Cyrano singlehandedly defeats 100 men with his magnificent swording skills. (Okay, swording isn’t a word. But it alliterates with skills.) And The New York Times thought that most of the actors were, and I quote, “colorless as the black-and-white photography.”

But there’s one thing you can’t deny about the movie, and that’s the fact that Jose Ferrer is one awesome Cyrano. And I can say that because he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Of course, such a juicy plot—an ugly man wooing a beautiful girl through another—was too good to use just in a historical play reimagining a 17^th century writer.

In the 1930s, Anatole Feldmen wrote a series of pulp fiction stories about “Big Nose Serrano,” a Chicago gangster who “always kept a soft spot for a swell-looking frail.”

Then, in 1987, we got Roxanne, a Steve Martin movie about “C.D. Bales”—get it? CDB?—a fireman who woos Roxanne through another fireman named Chris.

In 2012, Disney Channel released a made-for-television movie called Let It Shine, about a black teenager named “Cyrus DeBarge”—honestly, it’s impossible to Americanize a name like Cyrano de Bergerac, stop trying—with a penchant for rapping. ‘Cause then it can end with a rap battle… And there’s a girl named Roxie and a guy named Kris—spelled K-R-I-S. However, this adaption left out the part about the nose.

And then, finally, a theater writer named Jeremy Desmon created a “jukebox musical” about a burger-flipping teenager with a large nose who…you know what, just take the original plot and replace “letters” with “text messages” and you’ve got the general gist. Probably the only adaption of Cyrano de Bergerac to include “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen, the title of this musical is…wait for it…Cyrano de BurgerShack.

Next week's film: If you know the song "Wot Cher! Knocked 'Em in the Old Kent Road," you're probably a fan of The Muppet Show, or else you're a fan of this movie. Extra hint: The star was white, but later became Black.