L'emmerdeur

This film essentially is a study of characters between a loser (Jacques Brel) and a hit man (Lino Ventura).

This film, like many French comedies, has a Hollywood counterpart, "Buddy Buddy", with Walther Mathau and Jack Lemmon. Although not bad, the remake is nevertheless deceptive, as we were expecting much more from a movie in which the two principal characters are played by such great actors.

I liked this film, not really belly laugh funny, but the situation comedy that Lino Ventura and Jacques Brel get themselves into, can be very humorous. Ventura plays an assassin who is trying to do a job, however he gets caught up with Brel's annoying and suicidal hypochondriac, foiling his attempts, by trying to commit suicide in the room next door to the room Ventura is in to do the hit. This causes the police to be called to the hotel. When they arrive however, Ventura persuades them that Brel is a friend and he will look after him and get him back on his feet. He decides to get rid of Brel, so that he can continue on his original task, but then ends up helping him to settle the score with his wife, who has left Brel for a rich medical doctor and that is when the real fun starts...!

"L'Emmerdeur" (1973) is the French movie which originated a US remake directed by Willy Wilder -"Buddy Buddy" (1981), starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. It was the last Wilder movie, not bad at all, but this original one is far better.

French star Lino Ventura and Belgian singer Jacques Brel were friends, they shot their first film together with Claude Lelouch "L'aventure c'est l'aventure". They wanted to team again and chose established comedy director Edouard Molinaro for adapting this movie, written by Francis Veber -who later became another master of French comedy...

A gangster named Milan takes a room in a Montpellier hotel, which is located in front of a Tribunal. He has a mission -shooting from his window for killing the key witness of a trial. In the room next to his there's a man, François Pignon, who is desperate instead. he wants to commit suicide because his wife quit him. The meeting of the two originates a series of accidents and misunderstandings...!

The comedy is excellent, with two actors in a really good shape. The highlight is that Brel and Ventura characters are so different and have nothing in common. Each, in his own side, is not funny -one is serious and cold, the other is sad and loser. BUT their combination is absolutely comical. (The way Brel calls Ventura -"Monsieur Milan!"- is irresistible!)

It's a high quality comedy, one of the most famous ever made in France. Edouard Molinaro directed other great comedies -among them two films with Louis De Funès and "La Cage aux folles", the gay comedy starring Michel Serrault and Ugo Tognazzi. Molinaro is at ease in making "L'Emmerdeur", many scenes are also shot by himself carrying a camera on his shoulder...

But the other leading person behind this film is, as already said, Francis Veber. His lines and situations are typical of the comedies he'll direct later -among them "La chèvre" with Depardieu and Pierre Richard, "Le diner des cons" and "Le placard". There's his recognizable style of creating strange situations -Veber likes putting in his films two completely different actors and creating comical situations from that.

Another thing: Jacques Brel's character is called François Pignon. It's the same name Veber uses in his other films for one of the two leading roles -the name itself has become synonym of an awkward, unlucky, naive and a little stupid person...!

One of the many great comedies from France from the 1970's, and a commodity which is seriously lacking nowadays in that country ! It is now available in France ( March 2007 ) on DVD, and please note that the DVD has English Subtitles if required. Ventura was a great actor and Brel, though hopeless as an actor, occupied a part which didn't need a great actor. Brel in this film can get on your nerves at time, just like Michael Crawford in "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em" but despite this, the spectator has a good time ! The catchy, almost wailing, theme music by François Rauber (played on a whiny accordeon) is typical of many French films from the sixties and seventies and serves as a way of identifying the origin of the film. Given that now both the main protagonists of the film are dead, the sound of this accordéon is particularly nostalgic. The recipe of two character-opposed central characters is often a central tenet of French cinema ( Richard / Depardieu, Depardieu/Reno, De Funes/Carmet, De Funes/Bourvil ...... and Ventura/Brel in this film )and has been used with success to make generations of moviegoers laugh ! Francis Veber had a large had in this film although its director was Edouard Molinaro - is it any surprise then that one of the characters has the name François Pignon. Indeed, BREL is the ORIGINAL François Pignon. The character was subsequently interpreted by Pierre Richard, Jacques Villeret, Daniel Auteuil et alia ............

This is one of the last good comedies Molinaro was able to make, before he got stuck in Cage aux folles-robotic entertainment. Pairing Lino Ventura and Jacques Brel was a wonderful idea: one is so dour and methodical, the other so emotional, helpless, a real loser.

The hotel scenes are very well set up; there is a claustrophobic feeling about the layout of the suites. The water seeping through the door into Ventura's suite from Brel's bathroom after the suicide attempt prevents Ventura from concentrating on assembling his rifle--very well handled by Molinaro. The clinic scene, with Ventura ending up in a strait-jacket is a marvelous four-way comic piece with Caroline Cellier and Jean-Pierre Darras joining the two principals.

Now, if someone will bring back La Mandarine (with an impressive Annie Girardot) and L'Homme pressé, two more great Molinaro pictures from the 70's, my happiness will be complete.