Much of the comedy in this French film probably
doesn't play well to a modern audience - Belmondo pretending to be mentally
incapacitated to receive a welfare check and an effeminate mincing gay character
(also played by Belmondo) - and then a lot of screwball physical comedy heaped
on top of that like a chocolate sundae - but I am old and have seen so much
of that sort of thing in my life that it just doesn't really offend me -
though I can certainly understand it offending others. I thought some of
it was funny and the romance between Belmondo's character and Raquel Welch's
character was sweet and cute. When they aren't hitting one another. The killer
for me is that I watched an English dubbed version that should come with
a warning label. Whoever dubs Belmondo is ok but whoever dubbed Raquel should
serve time. I feel sorry for her husband and expect he has turned to drink
or murder. It is kind of a screechy Katherine Hepburn voice that feels like
a cruise missile. I read that her dubbing in the French version was just
as bad so there is no winning here. Bad dubbing or not, she looks great here.
The two of them are stuntpersons in movies and in love. The film opens with
Belmondo climbing a high building in order to save her from a fire. Then
the camera pulls back and we see that the building is actually flat on the
ground - the real stars are watching - Jane Birkin and Johnny Hallyday in
cameos - and it is being directed by Claude Chabrol. The next day in another
scene that looks like a film about Bonnie and Clyde, Belmondo drives the
car as Raquel shoots out the window with a machine gun but the breaks fail
and they end up in the hospital. And she tries to beat the hell out of him
for getting her into this fix. They were supposed to have been married. Now
he has to get her back.
Belmondo, Raquel and Johnny Hallyday
Belmondo gets another job as a stunt man for a famous actor who he is the
double of - but the actor is gay and that brings on some misplaced affections.
The real attraction here besides Raquel is Belmondo's physicality. He does
all his own stunts and hurt himself on a few of them. In one sequence he
has to be shot and fall down the 20 or so steps from top to bottom - then
the actor pops up to make it look like it was him. Something keeps going
wrong and they have to do it again and again - "I forget what was my
line" - or the lighter doesn't work - five times and each one of those is
Belmondo. He also fights off a tiger twice, swings on a vine, climbs over
walls like we do a door mat. But the big one is he climbs down from a helicopter
on a ladder on to the wings of a plane - all shot to show that it is real
and it is Belmondo. He said that was something he always had wanted to do.
