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Heartbeat

Heartbeat

Comedy · 1938

A pompous grocer’s assistant in Marseille annoys a visiting film crew so much that they prank him with a phony acting contract; believing it to be real, the “schpountz” heads to Paris for his new career.

Movie details

Heartbeat

1938 Comedy 2h 12m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.4 / 10

781 votes

TMDB

6.9 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

A pompous grocer’s assistant in Marseille annoys a visiting film crew so much that they prank him with a phony acting contract; believing it to be real, the “schpountz” heads to Paris for his new career.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Heartbeat?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Five

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Marcel Pagnol

Written by

Marcel Pagnol

Fernandel

Fernandel

Irénée Fabre, 'le Schpountz'

Fernand Charpin

Fernand Charpin

Uncle Baptiste Fabre

Henri Poupon

Henri Poupon

Galubert

Orane Demazis

Orane Demazis

Françoise

Léon Belières

Léon Belières

Meyerboom

J

Jean Castan

Casimir Fabre

O

Odette Roger

Aunt Clarisse Fabre

Court is in session

Put Heartbeat on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Arthouse Gremlin

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.