Ces messieurs de la famille

Gabriel Pelletier is the commercial director of a French firm which wants to make a deal with an American firm. So Gabriel Pelletier has to receive in house an American delegate, Strumberger ,who is a very workalholic and puritan. As soon as Strumberger arrives, the family begins to have all problems of the world, Simone ,the spouse is arrested when the police makes a raid against prostitution, the daughter Nicole gets drunk and insults policemen, the son Albert Pelletier , who is director uses fake weapons for his films and Gabriel is arrested when he wants to throw away these fake weapons. Every time the involved are arrested and sent to a police station. Strumberger wants to make the deal,but he has to wait.

Some moments are funny like the dialogue betweeen Marco Broca , the jealous husband (played by Jean Yanne) and the womanizer (played by Jean Poiret)., but other moments are repetitive :arrivals at the police station, the questions of the police sergeant and the rescue by the other membres of the family.

A French comedy reminding a so familiar recipe. The American businessman as guest for a French collegue. The family of the last is piece, member by member, in a long , complicated, unrealistic chain of troubles. But all becomes OK , in sweet French style for comedies.

Sex, prostitution, infidelity, bets, guns, a presumed murder, great actors and very easy story. And, sure, the chaos in which police is present step by step and just helpless.

The virtue - maybe few situations about family life who are some realistic.

And the fine game of apparences.

In short, a very easy comedy and few drops about image of French and American people in gentle portraits from perspective one by other.

With Raoul André,the French cinema plumbs the depth of mediocrity:his "Ces Messieurs De La famillle "is absolutely dreadful .The plot could have been a guilty pleasure ,but the gags are so repetitive and heavy-handed that the viewer feels sorry for the actors (Poiret et Serrault who had seen better days with Guitry and would see them again with Claude Chabrol).

A chief executive officer makes a manful attempt to crack the commercial coconut (the American market that is)by trying to sell their products to the Yankees;one of their executives is to come to France to conclude a deal ;this man is a puritan ,who thinks that French way of life is contrary to accepted standards of good behavior. And unfortunately the chief executive officer asks Mister Peltier to entertain the American in his home ,where his brother-in-law's favorite pastime is womanizing;and the rest of the family does not help :his wife is mistaken for a prostitute , the maid is a Maoist ,the daughter wears suggestive miniskirts,you name it....

A dreadful potpourri of overacting ,appalling lines ,a pathetic programme! The American never says a single word in English, and he's got a German accent (because his ancestors were Germans,we hear)! The maid sells propaganda papers about the little Red Book in front of her employer's firm,an employer who winds up in the police station every ten minutes !

Take to your heels!