It is a well-established comic device: the protagonist loses something, often an item of clothing, and shamelessly hassles passers-by in an attempt to recover the missing object. The important thing is that the harassment be indiscriminate. In this particular case, Polidor loses his shoes and is forced to replace them with the worn-out pair of a tramp. Out on the street, he grabs anyone who comes within reach by the calves in order to inspect their heels and soles – enough to make ladies faint and justify a prison sentence. Hidden beneath a piece of furniture left on the pavement, Polidor even witnesses a parade of footwear whose variety of shapes, amounts to a kind of catalogue of the fashions of the day. I admit that, until today, I had never come across the word ‘retifism’, a form of fetishism associated with shoes, which seems to me to fit this film perfectly.

Andrea Meneghelli