An improvement on "la cage aux rossignols"?

Rating: 4/10 (5 July 2005)

"La cage aux rossignols" ,released in 1945,was one of the last movies of the occupation days ."Les choristes" ,although they have transposed the action to the fifties,hints at it when a young brat breaks into "maréchal ,nous voilà!" ,anthem of those dark years.The question is:was it necessary to redo?Yes the songs are splendid and are likely to become part of the repertoire of all the French schools .Yes the boy who plays Morange mesmerizes the audience ,and like Brigitte Fossey ("jeux interdits" ) or Benoit Magimel ("la vie est un long fleuve tranquille" ) he may become an actor when he grows up.
The original screenplay has undergone some changes:it has become a long flashback ,with an ending which focuses one more time on success and fame ,borrowing more from "Professor Holland's opus" than from Dreville's old flick.The rebel pupil's sister has become an unmarried mother,which was unthinkable in the Petain years.Producer Jacques Perrin -who has seen better days,artistically speaking- appears as the umpteenth version of the ugly duckling turned into a swan.
And finally the Jugnot vehicle has the same drawbacks as its model:the kids become quickly much too quickly a heavenly choir ,andwe do know that, in both movies ,the young actors are choristers in real life.The characters remain cardboard and Gérard Jugnot is neither better nor worse than Noël-Noël .
What's amazing is that generally "la cage aux rossignols" is dismissed as cheesy and maudlin (its rating is average) whereas its remake is praised to the skies.It's the same old song though.