40 years ago, one of Michel Blanc’s best films was released, where he showed Gerard Lanvin!

Marche à l’ombre was released 40 years ago today, on October 17, 1984, and who would have thought that Michel Blanc wouldn’t be around to celebrate this anniversary? He died suddenly on October 3, the brilliant actor was 72 years old.

Inspired by the cowboy Macadam, of whom he was a great admirer, Blanc’s first creation was a success. It was his friend Patrice Leconte (Les Bronzés, Viens chez moi, j’habite chez une famille) who convinced him to write the story himself.

It is the story of two struggling boys, François and Denis, who arrive in Paris. The first wants to get into music thanks to a slightly obscure contact, the second, a hypochondriac, lives a little from the first and helps him… in his own way.

Offered by the New Hollywood movement in the United States in the 1970s, Michel Blanc first of all tells the story of his characters and their struggles, but during their journey, above all, he describes the hidden Paris. Prostitution, trafficking, drugs, racism, slum landlords, all of this is found in Marche à l’ombre, always at the forefront with a nice layer of comedy.

If the shot is carefully thought out (Marche à l’ombre is shot in Cinemascope), the image is deliberately dark to retain the general atmosphere of gray and menace of this Paris.

With 6.1 million theaters since its release, Marche à l’ombre remains Michel Blanc’s second best-grossing film behind Les Bronzés 3, amis pour la vie. She also received two César nominations: Best Promising Actress for Sophie Duez and Best Debut Performance, which she lost to Richard Dembo for La Diagonale du fou.

However, it was the Marche à l’ombre that the public accepted and proved that Michel Blanc could do without glamor (which he had already proven in the past) and also without his mentor, Patrice Leconte, to make people laugh while showing some social reality. . It happened, not because of a misunderstanding!