Gendarme in New York: If Jean Lefebvre (Fougas) is less present, there is a good reason!

Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (1964) was a hit at the box office and a sequel followed immediately in 1965 and this time he sent the famous brigade to America! Crouchot, Gerber, Fougas and others are sent to represent France at the International Gendarmerie Congress in New York. Except that Nicole, Crusoe’s daughter, wisely goes to discover the country, and the chief quartermaster, noticing the fraud, does his best to keep this predatory passenger hidden from his men.

M6 will hand over this second gendarme on July 19 at 21:10.

Fugas is sick, but Jean Lefebvre is fine!

A French ship is used to transport the entire team to New York and serves as a filming location. But after a while, Jean Lefebvre slammed the door and stopped filming. He pretends to be sick. Except the producer gives another version, quoting Galabru (Gerber) in his autobiography: “Jean Lefebvre stopped filming on the pretext that he was sick, and we caught him playing in the casino at midnight.” Therefore, he is excluded from filming.

Screenwriter Jacques Wilfried must urgently find a way out of the situation, but how to do it? He gets the idea that Fugas is getting sick during the crossing. Therefore, he is deprived of visits to New York. We see him only in a brief scene in which he returns to health, but after an accident caused by Gerber’s clumsiness, he is injured again (broken leg) and isolated in a hospital. Another reason for the absence of Fugas.

A bit of cover-up decisions to accommodate an actor leaving mid-shoot. But why did Lefebvre go like that?

Possible reasons for its absence

Above all, if there was one thing Louis de Funes did not appreciate, it was unprofessionalism. And most of the actors who filmed with Jean Lefebvre recount his nights playing in the casino, very late the next morning and sometimes without knowing his words. A way of doing things that hardly matches de Funes’s perfectionism. Therefore, the atmosphere between the two gendarmes was not good.

Furthermore, de Funes went from unknown to star status thanks to Fantômas, Le Corniaud and the first Gendarme, released in 1964 and early 1965. “I found an apple taste in it” But it has not yet had such popularity. in his memories The roles of my lifeMichel Galabru drops the word “jealousy” to talk about Lefebvre’s relationship with de Funes.

Because Lefebvre, who was on the same level of notoriety as de Funes in “Saint-Tropez,” seems to have a hard time digesting being placed second in New York’s Le Gendarme, with Crucho in every shot. But when you give a star, you might as well show it off.

Epilogue

Jean Lefebvre would become an unmistakable source of laughter, filmed in 1966 with Let’s not be angry and Du mou dans la triggerette, but also an idiot in Paris and a fool in the laboratory 4 (1967). He really rose to stardom, of course, with 7th Company, three films released between 1973 and 1977. A decade during which he had a string of headliners.

He will also return to Le Gendarme se marie, then walk to Le Gendarme, and it is at this point that the ashes between Crusoe and Fugas will be burned. But that’s another story…