La Valise (1973)
Directed by Georges Lautner

Film Review

This run-of-the-mill comedy-thriller affords some memorable comic moments but will be most appreciated by fans of the super-sexy Mireille Darc.  A familiar face in Georges Lautner's films, Michel Constantin gets a rare lead role, and works well along side the magnificent Jean-Pierre Marielle.  By far the most memorable sequence in the film is the one where Jean Lefebvre struggles with the huge suitcase of the film's title; if the rest of the film had been as inventive and funny, La Valise would probably rank as a comic masterpiece.  As it is, Francis Veber's script is occasionally amusing (and wondrously politically incorrect), but not up to the standard of some of the writer's later work.

Film Synopsis

Having succeeded in making himself the enemy of the entire Arab world, Commander Bloch, a senior agent in the Israeli secret services, flees to Libya and soon finds himself holed up in the French Embassy in Tripoli.  His only hope of leaving the country alive is by being smuggled out in a diplomatic suitcase.  Captain Augier is tasked with this delicate mission, but before the suitcase can reach Paris an airport strike takes effect.  As a result, Augier and Bloch end up being confined to a hotel, which just happens to be the same hotel where the Israeli spy met the one true love of his life, Françoise.  As he recalls this earlier romantic interlude in his life Bloch manages to convince himself that Françoise is the person who betrayed him.

Anxious to know the truth, Bloch asks Augier to keep a watchful eye on his former lover.  Françoise's irresistible charms prove to be more than a match for Augier, and in no time at all he is infatuated with her and persuades her to travel back to Paris with him.  Once the strike is over, Augier is able to resume his mission, but the aeroplane has barely left the tarmac before it is hijacked.  Landing in the desert, Augier and Françoise are soon captured by a gang of merciless Arabs who would no doubt be pleased to learn that their sworn enemy Bloch is hiding on the plane in a suitcase.  Their adventures have only just begun...