Ne nous fâchons pas (1966)
Directed by Georges Lautner

Film Review

Ne nous fâchons pas continued a run of popular gangster parodies that director Georges Lautner and screenwriter Michel Audiard knocked out between them in the 1960s. Lautner and Audiard's first success had been Les Tontons flingueurs (1963), probably the best known of all French thriller parodies, followed by its equally entertaining sequel Les Barbouzes (1964).  Ne nous fâchons pas carried on in the same scurrilous vein, with Lino Ventura once again taking centre stage as the sympathetic hoodlum who somehow holds onto his cool as the whole world around him degenerates into a chaotic farce.  Michel Constantin, a much-loved stalwart of the comedy gangster genre, was drafted in to play Ventura's Number 2, with Jean Lefebvre thrust unceremoniously into the role that he was wedded to for most of his career, that of the continually put-upon stooge.  French glamour girl of the moment, Mireille Darc, provides a very welcome feminine presence (and a bountiful supply of sex apppeal) in a predictably male-dominated cast.

Despite being one of the jolliest of Lautner's films, Ne nous fâchons pas was not a happy production.  Ventura was reluctant to appear in it from the outset and even when substantial changes had been made to the script to accommodate his concerns he had many fallings out with Lautner during the filming.   A private man who was very conscious of his public image, Ventura had very definite ideas about the kind of characters he would portray on screen and could never concede to playing someone who took pleasure in inflicting physical violence.  (Hence the deadpan line: Je critique pas le côté farce. Mais pour le fair-play, y aurait quand même à dire, which Ventura's character delivers when his henchman has just blown up his opponent with a bomb disguised as a golfball.)  By humanising Ventura's character, Audiard emphasises his disconnection from the thuggish world he is reluctantly forced back into, as well as heightening the absurd, comicbook nature of all the other characters.  It's a bit like putting James Cagney in a Looney Tunes cartoon - Ventura retains his integrity by playing a real, likeable character, whilst Audiard and Lautner indulge in their usual mischief, sending up a popular genre for all it is worth.

By the mid-1960s, the gangster film was enjoying a new lease of life in France, and spoofs were every bit as popular as serious examples of the genre.  With a substantially greater budget than Lautner's previous parodies, Ne nous fâchons pas ended up as slick production that, visually, compares well with big budget thrillers of the time, most notably the early James Bond films.  The influence of British culture on French cinema in the 1960s was almost as strong as that of American culture in the previous decade - thanks mainly to the Bond phenomenon, but also to the music, fashion and art of the period.  Ne nous fâchons pas is as much a tribute to 'Brit cool' of the mid-1960s as it is a send-up of the French gangster film.  The villains of the piece are a squad of ruthless assassins dressed as English public schoolboys (most looking worryingly like Malcolm McDowell), racing around on red scooters and inexplicably breaking off to perform rock instrumentals as and when the mood takes them.  It may be a caricature, but it's not an entirely unflattering one.

In common with almost every other Lautner-Audiard collaboration, Ne nous fâchons pas makes up for its lack of plot by bombarding its spectator with an unrelenting barrage of scripted and visual gags (most of the latter involving things and people being blown up cartoon-style).  Lautner, who directed many serious thrillers as well as a fair number of parodies, appears reluctant to send-up a genre for which he has a natural affinity, and this hesitancy gives the humour a sharper, more sophisticated edge.  The fact that Ventura insists on playing every one of his scenes with deadly seriousness - no matter how madcap and surreal they become - also strengthens the humour.   Tommy Duggan, a frequent visitor to British television screens in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, is clearly having the time of his life as Ventura's adversary, a camp Bond villain in all but name.   The rest of the cast are content to play the comedy cyphers as they are written, although Mireille Darc brings us back to reality (as only she can) in the film's brief romantic interlude.  In her tight-fitting leather outfit and full-length boots you could almost swear Mlle Darc was up for the part of the next Avengers girl...   Stylish, funny and yet respectful of the genre that it lampoons so effectively, Ne nous fâchons pas has much in common with that other shameless celebration of 60s Brit cool, Peter Collinson's The Italian Job (1969) - albeit with one Renault 8 Gordini doing the job of three Mini Coopers.  Ah, it's enough to make you want to drown in nostalgia...

Film Synopsis

Antoine Beretto had hoped that his criminal past is way behind him.  Once a notorious gangster, he now basks in tranquil respectability on the sunny Côte d'Azur, his only professional interest being the boating club that he manages so successfully.  Beretto's laidback honest life is suddenly put at risk when two of his erstwhile criminal associates show up, asking him for the whereabouts of a dodgy bookmaker named Léonard Michalon.  The two crooks are desperate to leave the country, but to do so they need a stack of cash - Michalon is one of the men they intend to collect from.

At it happens, Michalon is in hiding, on the run from a British gang led by the ruthless crime lord MacLean, better known as The Colonel.  Beretto knows that he will never recover his money if Michalon falls into the hands of these gun-toting desperados, so, despite his reservations about returning to his old ways, he agrees to lend his support.  It is a decision he soon comes to regret.  The Colonel is not your usual, run-of-the-mill hoodlum.  He is a complete maniac, and he has even fewer scruples than a French politician.  Once Michalon has fallen into his vile clutches there seems to be no hope of rescuing him.

Teaming up with his old friend Jeff, a restaurant owner,  Beretto launches a determined, almost suicidal, attack on the Colonel's stronghold and Michalon manages a miraculous escape.  Mercilessly hunted by their enemy, the three men take refuge in the private country residence of Michalon's beautiful young wife, Églantine.  It isn't long before the Colonel shows up with his gang of deadly long-haired youths, who let off streams of bullets with gay abandon.   It is the bloodiest and noisiest onslaught Beretto has ever known, and the party is far from over.  The British never do anything by halves.  As the bodies pile up all around him the jaded hoodlum longs for the quiet life...