Le Gendarme et les extra-terrestres (1979)
Directed by Jean Girault

Film Review

It was on the back of the success of Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez in 1964 that Louis de Funès became a huge comedy star in France and proved to be a consistent box office winner for the next fifteen years.  A film that notched up an audience of 7.8 million was bound to have at least one follow-up, but what actually came along were four sequels, all phenomenally successful.  After Le Gendarme à New York (1965), Le gendarme se marie (1968) and Le Gendarme en balade (1970), it seemed that the series had run its course, and when a planned fifth film Le Gendarme à l'exercice was shelved after de Funès's heart attack in 1975, it looked as if we had seen the last of Cruchot and his ineffectual gendarme chums.

But no, nine years after their fourth wacky outing, the gendarmes returned with a vengeance - as well as some incredibly dodgy special effects - in an outrageous spoof of Steven Spielberg's sci-fi hit Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).  By the late 1970s, science-fiction had suddenly become the in-thing as a result of the success of Spielberg's film and a certain George Lucus offering named Star Wars (1977), but being unable to compete with such effects-heavy extravaganzas, the best the French could do was to resort to burlesque parody.  Director Henri Lanoë had already set a good precedent for this with his 1967 comedy Ne jouez pas avec les Martiens (1967).

Le Gendarme et les extra-terrestres offers a close encounter of an altogether funnier kind to the one offered by Spielberg in his opulent blockbuster (which incidentally featured a certain icon of French cinema, François Truffaut, in a leading role).  Some of the regulars from the series have disappeared or unaccountably altered their appearance (unable to reprise the role of Cruchot's wife Claude Gensac was replaced at the last minute by Maria Mauban), but Louis de Funès is back in fine form, ably supported by his superlative comedy foil Michel Galabru.  The film offers the comic genius ample opportunity to indulge in his own brand of outlandish comedy, whether he is dressing up as a nun or happily slapping semi-naked tourists to find out whether they are aliens or not.

With both sci-fi and de Funès proving to be massive box office draws in the late '70s, Le Gendarme et les extra-terrestres could hardly fail to have been a massive hit.  With its audience of 6.3 million, it was the most successful French film of the year, a feat that three of the earlier Gendarme films had achieved.  With the lead actor's health already in decline, this was to be the last occasion when he topped the box office in France.  Not long after completing work on the final film in the series, Le Gendarme et les Gendarmettes (1982), de Funès was snatched away from us, not by aliens, but by a fatal heart attack.

Film Synopsis

On his home turf of St-Tropez, Cruchot is out on routine patrols with his latest recruit Beaupied when his jeep suddenly breaks down. As his superior struggles to repair the immobilised vehicle, Beaupied wanders off towards a clearing and is dumbstruck by the sight of the strange object in front of him: a flying saucer! He fails to convince Cruchot or any of his fellow gendarmes of what he has seen, but not long afterwards the same thing happens to Cruchot. The latter's fears that an alien invasion is imminent are given further substance when, late one night, he encounters one of the extra-terrestrials in the police headquarters. Although he has adopted the physical appearance of Cruchot's superior Gerbier the alien gives himself away by imbibing oil and sounding like a tin can when struck on the back. Mistaking the real Gerbier and his colonel for aliens, Cruchot gets himself arrested, but he escapes with the help of a friendly nun, Marie Clotilde. Now convinced that the aliens' intentions for mankind are far from peaceful, Cruchot must now prove to his superiors that they have arrived in St-Tropez and are already starting to infiltrate both the gendarmerie and the tourist population of the town...