Comment réussir... quand on est con et pleurnichard (1974)

Comment réussir... quand on est con et pleurnichard is a French film comedy first released in 1974, directed by Michel Audiard.  The film stars Jean Carmet, Stéphane Audran, Jane Birkin, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Jean Rochefort.  It has also been released under the title: How to Make Good When One Is a Jerk and a Crybaby.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


Antoine Robineau manages to sell his homemade alcoholic drinks not by promoting their positive attributes, which are non-existent, but by playing on the sympathy of his clients.  He soon discovers that by employing the same technique in his personal life, he is able to attract some very desirable women, who assist him in his ascent of the social ladder...

Great cast, pity about the script.   The flair for screenwriting which Michel Audiard showed in films for other directors is strangely lacking in the films which he himself directed.  A few brilliant visual gags aside, Comment réussir... quand on est con et pleurnichard is a pretty tedious run-about farce which suffers from a lamentably weak narrative and some pretty feeble attempts at humour revolving mostly about female nudity.  (At times, it looks as if this was intended as a clumsy send-up of Just Jaeckin’s controversial erotic drama Emmanuelle, released the same year.)  Fortunately, Audiard’s star-studded cast, which includes such talented performers as Jean Rochefort and Stéphane Audran, can be called upon to make a sub-mediocre comedy mildly entertaining.

© James Travers 2008

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