Ces messieurs de la famille (1967) - film review

Gabriel Pelletier is the commercial director of a company that has a precarious future unless it can secure a partnership with Eric Strumberger, a wealthy American industrialist.    Gabriel’s boss insists that he make a positive impression on Strumberger by inviting him to stay in his house.   There is just one problem with this plan.  Strumberger is a man of the most puritanical tastes and morals, whereas Gabriel’s family is, to put it mildly, a wayward bunch.  His brother is an eccentric filmmaker with a taste for young women, his brother-in-law is an inveterate Don Juan with at least a dozen mistresses, and his daughter is the biggest worry of them all.  Sure enough, it isn’t long before Strumberger becomes acquainted with the colourful underside of the Parisian bourgeoisie...

This insipid comedy is salvaged by its exceptional cast – which includes such star performers as Michel Serrault, Francis Blanche, Michel Galabru and Jean Yanne.  This spectacular ensemble of talent somehow makes up for the ramshackle plot, uninspired direction and horribly contrived comic situations, the result being a mildly entertaining, but not particularly memorable, light comedy.   The main attraction is Francis Blanche’s truly bizarre portrayal of an Americanised German, looking and sounding like a comic book caricature of the great actor-director Eric von Stroheim.  Meanwhile, Darry Cowl’s character, an avant-garde filmmaker whose work no one understands, has some obvious similarities with French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard. One other very famous actor turns up right at the end of the film, but you have to watch the film to see who that is, because his appearance is probably the best laugh on offer.

© James Travers 2008

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