
Les aventures des Pieds Nickelés (1947) suivit du Trésor des Pieds Nickelés (1949) de Marcel Aboulker. On récidivera en 1964 sous le titre Les Pieds Nickelés réalisé par Jean-Claude Chambon. Mais retenons cette adaptation d’Emile Cohl (1917-1918) chez Éclair. Cette bande fut projetée dans le cadre de Ciné-Mémoire -2019 – à Épinay que vous pouvez découvrir. Restauré par le CNC.


We are deprived of the Great Loop. Never mind. So let’s discover this sporting adventure under the gaze of cinema and comics. A full-fledged character who takes center stage for three weeks.
To accompany us, Les Pieds nickelés, indécrottables schemers. If the 7th Art ignores the heroes of the resource (four films in all and for all). Films whose lack of inspiration must be recognized. Let’s not be choosy, we still drop the pleasure of a cinema today completely gone. Les Pieds nickelés were born with a pencil stroke and an idea from the designer Forton, in 1908. Three lads who might have crossed the path of their eldest, the aristocrat and elegant thief Arsène Lupine. The banter of the popular in addition, not mundane for two under the nickel-plated feet invite themselves in the name of the people. Which does not spoil anything. Croquignol, Ribouldingue and Filochard begin their adventures in the Epatant thanks to the pioneer of French comics, Louis Forton. As irreverent as anarchists, our heroes build this dream life of the newsboys. Nothing will stop them even the death in complete anonymity of their creator. It is René Pellos who will take up the line by accentuating the character of the characters. The trio landed for the first time in the Tour de France in 1948 to bring their subversion to it. It is also the year of the release of the movie Five Red Tulips by Jean Stelli. A thriller that integrates the peloton throughout the Great Loop. The nickel-plated feet, they press the pedal, rig the races, even become organizers for their only profits. Eight albums will be devoted to the Tour. Why so many? Simply because René Pellos is a cartoonist and works in the sports press as a designer. Nobody like him has the talent to bite the face of runners in pain that he sprinkles with the boxes. The cinema is in ambush and regularly leaves the peloton offering spectators some films on the Great Loop. Note that the first film dates from 1925: The King of the Pedal by Maurice Champreux, while The Nickel-plated Feet were already raging on tape. If cinema is interested in the Tour de France, it is above all for heroism in the face of difficulty. Faces tortured with pain, distorted by fatigue like caricatures. Let us remember several films like Hardi les Guys (1931) by Maurice Champreux where a postman for the love of his beautiful commits to the Great Loop … A character who recalls a certain François, the postman! But also For the Yellow Jersey (1939) by Jean Stelli with Albert Préjean as well as two films which evoke The Six Days of Paris, a race which has now disappeared: The Prince of the Six Days (1936) by Robert Vernay and a German film Rivaux on the track (1932) by Serge de Poligny. The Great Loop, the Nickel-plated Feet will cross it until 1983 for a final album The Nickel-plated Feet do the Tour then the tired heroes will hang up their bags. This will not prevent cinema from prancing up with several films that must be rediscovered like Les Cracks (1968) by Alex Joffé with Bourvil, Parpaillon (1993) by Luc Moullet and the animated film by Sylvain Chomet Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003). The documentary by American director The Armstrong Lie (2013). The deposed king of the little queen, Lance Armstrong, who with other doping cases discredited the Tour which did not lose all its popularity. But the damage was done and doubt settled. If we had to finish the stage, there is a film which, without having made the Grand Tour, had in its time won the hearts of roadside spectators: Le Triporteur, produced in 1957 by Jacques Pinoteau and interpreted by Darry Cowl . But if we were only to retain a film which, from start to finish, sums up the universe of nickel-plated feet, it would undoubtedly be the Adventure, it is the Adventure of Claude Lelouch.