Place Blanqui, the building catches your eye. Red brick, 1879 façade, in front of which generations of tourists have stood, camera in hand. This is the place. The old gendarmerie, the one from the Cruchot films, where Louis de Funès, Michel Galabru and Jean Lefebvre shot the 1964 cult series that would draw over 7.8 million cinema-goers for the first film alone.
Since 2016, the building has been a museum. Dual theme: the history of the Tropezien gendarmerie, founded in 1838, and the cinematic myth of the village. On the first floor, a recreation of the 1960s brigade offices, lockers, uniforms, typewriter, and a life-size statue of Louis de Funès as Cruchot. On the second, dressing rooms of Brigitte Bardot and Romy Schneider, a screening room where actor interviews and clips of films shot around the peninsula play. Downstairs, Europe's largest suspended display case (18 metres long, 8 high), a technical feat housing a vintage Simca Aronde, luggage on the roof, the Route Nationale 7 reconstructed.
Currently, a temporary exhibition around Et Dieu… créa la femme (And God Created Woman, 1956) by Roger Vadim, 70 years after its release, the film that turned BB into an international icon and the village into a setting etched in the collective imagination. Posters, magazines, period objects. In summer, late opening on Thursday until 9pm. Sometimes, in season, open-air screenings on the square. Creative workshops for kids on Sundays.
