Summary
The industrialist Victor Pivert is en route for his daughter’s wedding when he becomes
embroiled in a conspiracy to kill a popular dissident leader of a Middle Eastern country.
Pursued by Arab assassins, the French police, and his wife (who thinks he is having an
affair with another woman) the incorrigibly racist Pivert is forced to adopt the guise
of a Jew. He is then mistaken for Rabbi Jacob, a popular Jewish leader from New
York...
Review
Attracting around 7.2 million cinema-goers in France alone, Les Aventures de
Rabbi Jacob was by far the most popular film to be released in France in 1973.
The reason for its success is not hard to divine: the winning combination of director
Gérard Oury and comic actor Louis de Funès had already scored several major
commercial successes (including the record-breaking La
Grande vadrouille in 1966), and this latest film was not about to buck the trend
(although, sadly, it was to be the last collaboration between Louis de Funès and
Oury).
Despite its mind-bendingly complicated plot and its apparent over-preoccupation with religious
stereotyping, Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob definitely earns its status as one of
the half a dozen or so great comic masterpieces of French cinema. The film
boasts some of the most memorable comic set pieces ever to grace a French film (including
the hilarious shoot out at the chewing gum factory) and the dialogue is equally commendable.
The film is just one long series of perfectly realised comedy stunts and stinging one-liners,
an indefatigable comic tour de force.
Louis de Funès gives one of his best comic performances (far superior to his role
in the comparatively bland Fantomas and Gendarme films) and gives
no less than 120% in every scene he appears in (most notably in the Jewish dance sequence).
Suzy Delair, who plays de Funès' battleaxe of a wife in this film, is also worth
watching out for. The delightful Miou-Miou also makes an early film appearance in
this film.
Some spectators may take offence at the film’s superficial portrayal of Jewish life,
but to do so would be missing the point of the film. As in Oury’s previous
great comic film, La Grande vadrouille, every character in
the film is a shameless caricature, and if anything it is the Jewish characters who are
treated most sympathetically and believably (for example, witness Marcel Dalio’s
credible portrayal of Rabbi Jacob). Rather than making fun out of religious
minorities, the film perhaps instead shows the necessity for different communities to
work together to overcome a common enemy.
Whatever might be said about Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob it cannot be denied that
this is a hugely entertaining film, as fresh and as funny as it was in 1973.
© James Travers 2002
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