C'est pas parce qu'on a rien à dire qu'il faut fermer sa gueule... (1975)
Directed by Jacques Besnard

Film Review

Mainstream French comedies of the 1970s are in a league of their own.  The vast majority are hastily cobbled together nonsense pieces ('farce' would be too grand a word) intended exclusively for the less discerning end of the home market.  Cheap, tacky and often very unfunny, few of these films have stood the test of time, although their unique blend of crass inanity and carefree ineptitude does confer on them a certain charm.  C'est pas parce qu'on a rien à dire qu'il faut fermer sa gueule... (what a hideous title) is among the more watchable of the entries in this mad onslaught against comic decency, its appalling script amply redeemed by the spirited contributions from its four lead actors, led by the incomparable Bernard Blier.

Here, the sainted Blier joins forces with two other popular comic actors of the time, Michel Serrault and Jean Lefebvre, who form the unlikeliest of double acts (one that was mercfully never repeated).  Tsilla Chelton (later to be immortalised as the Aunt from Hell in Étienne Chatiliez's Tatie Danielle) completes the quartet as that uniquely French phenomenon, the female lavatory attendant, humorously referred to as Madame Pipi.  It is this dream foursome that makes this unimaginably silly comedy so implausibly enjoyable.  The gags are, for the most part, entirely predictable, but Blier and company never fail to get the laughs as they stumble from one inept comic interlude to another.

The film was conceived by Gérard Jugnot, Thierry Lhermitte and Christian Clavier, three members of the café-théâtre company Splendid, who would soon become famous through their popular stage plays and films, including Le Père Noël est une ordure.  The cumbersome title (indicative of much of the film's laboured attempts at comedy) derives from a catch phrase of the well-known film dialogist Michel Audiard and translates as "It isn't because you have nothing to say that you should keep your trap shut."  The two characters Max and Riton are, of course, named after the protagonists in the French heist classic Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), on which the film is (very) loosely based.

For a film that is mostly set in a public convenience (at one of Paris's mainline train stations), there is surprisingly little in the way of toilet humour (Dieu merci).  Most of the jokes revolve around mishaps that arise as the hopeless crooks try to knock a hole in a wall without disturbing the ever-vigilant Madame Pipi, who guards her toilet domain more diligently than Cerberus does the gates of Hell.  When, finally, the film manages to break out of its subterranean hole, we are treated to a lazy retread of that old budget comedy favourite: the misplaced suitcase.  Just as the jokes peter out to nothing in a pointlessly protracted final act the film somehow matches to disgorge a surprisingly funny punchline. 

One sure-fire way to decide whether a comedy has succeeded or not is to ask yourself: "Would I put myself through all that again?"   In the case of  C'est pas parce qu'on a rien à dire... the answer is an unequivocal yes.  It's silly, drawn-out and scurrilously patronising (primarily towards Scotsmen, English lords and those sad evil-eyed harridans who pounce on you every time you use a public convenience in France) but none of this prevents it from being fun.  Any film that boasts the combined talents of Bernard Blier and Tsilla Chelton deserves admission to the pantheon of unmissable French comedies - even this one.

Film Synopsis

The fact that Max and Riton are two of the most inept crooks in France does not deter criminal mastermind Fano from employing them in his latest meticulously thought-out nefarious exploit.  The scheme is, after all, totally idiot-proof.  All that Max and Riton have to do is to knock a hole in a toilet cubicle wall at the Gare de l'est in Paris and help themselves to the stack of cash contained in the safe behind it.  By adopting various disguises, the enterprising crooks manage to deceive the ever-watchful Madame Pipi as they go about their business.  Alas, Fano's faith in his accomplices proves to be hopelessly misplaced and it isn't long before the well-planned robbery starts to go completely awry...