Cow and I, The France / Italy
1959, 113min.
Producers: Adry de Carbuccia, Ronald Girard, Director: Henri Verneuil, Script: Henri Jeanson, Henri Verneuil, Jean Manse, Director of Photography: Roger Hubert, Composer: Paul Durand, Prod.Design: Jacques Chalvet, Sound: Gaston Ancessi, Antoine Petitjean, Arthur Vander Meeren, Editors: James Cuenet, Rose Sokol, Gabriel Rongier
Cast: Ellen Schwiers, Fernandel, Heinrich Gretler, Ingeborg Schöner, Pierre Louis, Richard Winckler, Bernard Musson, Maurice Nasil, Albert Rémy
Charles Bailly, a French World War II prisoner of war, devises a clever means of escaping from a German prison farm. A farmer's wife lends him one of the cows, Marguerite, and a milk pail. Charles sets out to walk to Stuttgart and to reach the border by posing as a laborer from a nearby farm. En route, he is forced to work at a lumber camp. Marguerite has a romantic interlude with an amorous bull. When he and Marguerite reach the Danube, Charles discovers that all the bridges have been destroyed in air raids. With only a rowboat available, he bids Marguerite a sad goodbye, but the resourceful cow crosses the river on a pontoon bridge. Reunited, Charles and Marguerite resume their journey and safely reach Stuttgart. Now Charles must leave Marguerite, and after a tearful farewell, he hops a freight train and arrives in France. He runs into the collaborating French security police, however, and is forced to jump another train to escape them. Unhappily, Charles boards one going in the wrong direction, which takes him back into Germany.
Production Companies
Da.Ma. Cinematografica
Les Films du Cyclope
| Verneuil, Henri  Henri Verneuil (Achod Malakian) (1920, Rodosto, Turkey – 2002, Bagnolet, France)
Director Henri Verneuil lived in France since 1924. It was at the tender age of 4 that he arrived with his family in Marseille, joining thousands of Armenians in fleeing the Turkish government's massacres of their people. After graduating from lycée in Aix-en-Provence he pursued a career in journalism, working as the editor-in-chief of the magazine Horizon in 1944 -1946. In 1945, under the pseudonym Henri Verneuil, he published several articles on the theme of the Armenian question in the journal Marseleise . Since 1948 he worked in the film industry. He shot many short films with the participation of the famous comic Fernandel. In 1951 he directed his first full-length feature The Hunting Ground, for which he came to be known as one of the best French cinematographers. Hollywood signed contracts with Verneuil. He created more than 40 films in cooperation with Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Omar Sharif and others. He visited Armenia in 1980. Verneuil received an honorary César award in 1996. At the end of his life he devoted his two final full-length features Mayrig and 588 Rue Paradis to his childhood and heritage.
Filmography
Escale au soleil (1947), Cuba à Monmartre (1948), Rhytmes de Paris (1948), Un juré bavard (1948), A la culotte de zouave (1949), A qui la bébé? (1949), Entre deux trains (1949), La Kermesse aux chansons (1949), Les nouveaux misérables (1949), Trente-troisième chambre (1949), Une journee avec Jacques Helian et son orchestre (1949), Pipe chien (1950), On demande un bandit (1950), Maldonne (1950), Les chansons s'envolent (1950), L'art d'être courtier (1950), La légende de Terre-Blanche (1950), La table-aux-Crevés/The Hunting Ground (1951), Brelan d’as/Full House (1952), Le fruit défendu/Forbidden Fruit (1952), La boulanger de Valorgue/The Wild Oat (1953), Carnaval (1953), L’ennemi public no 1/The Most Wanted Man (1953), Le mouton à cinq pattes/The Sheep Has Five Legs (1954), Les amants du Tage (1955), Des gens sans importance/People of No Importance (1956), Paris, Palace Hôtel (1956), Une manche et la belle/A Kiss for a Killer (1957), Maxime (1958), Le grand chef/Gangster Boss (1959), La vache et le prisonnier/The Cow and I (1959), L’affaire d’une nuit/It Happened All Night (1960), La française et l’amour (segment Ladultere)/Love and the Frenchwoman (segment Adultery) (1960), Le president/The President (1961), Les lions sont lachès/The Lions Are Loose (1961), Un singe en hiver/A Monkey in Winter (1962), Mélodie en sous-sol/Any Number Can Win (1963), Cent mille dollard au soleil/Greed in the Sun (1964), Week-end à Zuydcoote/Weekend at Dunkirk (1964), Le vingt-cinquième heure/The 25th Hour (1967), La bataille de San Sebastian/Guns for San Sebastian (1968), Le clan des Sicliens/The Sicilian Clan (1969), Le casse/The Burglars (1971), Le serpent/Night Flight from Moscow (1973), Peur sur la ville/Fear over the City (1975), Le corps de mon ennemi/Body of My Enemy (1976), I… commme Icare/I as Icarus (1979), Mille milliards de dollars/A Thousand Billion Dollars (1982), Les morfalous (1984), Mayrig (1991), 588 rue Paradis (1992)
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