Die Gaunerparade

The world's most incompetent thief, Toto, is running from a crowd because he stole a salami. He finds himself in a house. He raids the larder, when a noise alerts him to another person. It's the elegant Jean-Claude Pascal, who was Toto's apprentice many years ago. He's there to blackmail Simone Simon, the lady of the house, with letters she wrote her lover. After they arrange for a ten-million-lire swap, her husband, Gino Bramieri, catches sight of Toto leaving, and soon he is in prison.

For a man as rich as Bramieri, that seems like a small sum, even in 1911, when the story is set. However that cash is a supporting brick in his enterprises, and without it, everything tumbles into the dust. He tries to get Toto to tell him where the money is, first by sweet talking him, then by shouting and threatening. When neither works, he tries being nice, buying Toto expensive gifts. This has an unexpected result.

It's mostly a vehicle for Toto to mug and pratfall in, and he's as funny as he's ever been. The other players have their scenes, and are amusing, especially Mlle Simon. There's also a role for Giovanna Ralli as Pascal's house maid and Toto's love interest, that seems to have been largely sliced out of the movie. Still, what is there is a tremendously funny farce for the first hour, then a satire on celebrity in the last forty-five minutes, that never flags.