Oscar (1967)
Directed by Edouard Molinaro

Film Review

After the runaway success of Le Corniaud (1965) and La Grande vadrouille (1966), two of the most popular French comedies ever made, Louis de Funès was not only France's most popular comic actor, he was already set up to become the country's biggest cultural icon. At the height of his glory it was fitting that he should revisit the stage play that was instrumental in turning him from a busy but fairly unknown actor into a stupendous box office magnet.  That play was Claude Magnier's Oscar, a three-act comedy that had first been staged at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris in 1958, with Pierre Mondy, Jean-Paul Belmondo (then a compete unknown) and Maria Pacôme in the three principal roles.  It was only when de Funès took over the lead from Pierre Mondy in 1959 that the play became a hit, ensuring that it was only a matter of time (four years to be precise) before the actor achieved the stardom that had so far eluded him.  Between 1959 and 1972, de Funès starred in four stage productions of Magnier's play - all sell-outs - playing the irascible businessman Bertrand Barnier over six hundred times.

With Oscar being such a success on the stage, it was inevitable that it would end up being made into a film, and the honour of directing this film fell to Édouard Molinaro, a young filmmaker who already had a dozen credits to his name, mostly low budget crime dramas such as Un témoin dans la ville (1960).  Molinaro's experience of comedy was limited - he had recently directed Brigitte Bardot and Anthony Perkins in the fairy routine comedy Une ravissante idiote (1964) - but the popularity of the two films he directed with Louis de Funès (Oscar was immediately followed by Hibernatus) led him to helm several other notable comedies - L'Emmerdeur (1973), Le Téléphone rose (1975) and the cult phenomenon that was La Cage aux folles (1978).

The fact that Oscar was one of their most popular films (it attracted an audience of 6.1 million in France), belies the fact that Molinaro and de Funès had an extremely poor working relationship.  The actor's insecurities caused him to lose confidence in the director and resulted in a break in the filming that came close to derailing the project altogether.  The comfort blanket that de Funès invariably needed to perform at his best was on this occasion provided by his coterie of friends Claude Gensac, Mario David and Paul Préboist, who supported him (both morally and professionally) in much of his work.

Mario David reprises the role of the gorilla-like masseur he had created for the original 1958 production of Oscar and subsequent stagings featuring de Funès.  Paul Préboist appeared in well over a hundred comedies and, looking like the human equivalent of a well-used punchbag, was the perfect foil for the pugnacious de Funès.   Playing de Funès's on-screen wife for the first time was Claude Gensac, beginning a partnership that would endure right up until the comedy giant's final film, Le Gendarme et les Gendarmettes (1982).  In total, Gensac appeared in ten of de Funès's films, usually as his implausibly genteel wife, most famously Josépha Cruchot in the Gendarme series.

De Funès was less than happy with the casting of Claude Rich in the other principal male role - the aspiring son-in-law who resorts to embezzlement to win his employer's daughter.  Rich's success in other hit films such as Georges Lautner's Les Tontons flingueurs (1963) aggravated de Funès's insecurities and led to considerable tension on the set, although this worked to the film's advantage, adding a frisson to the antagonistic relationship between their two characters (the scene in which Rich hijacks his co-star's breakfast is a classic).  In fact, this is one of the more successful 'double acts' in Louis de Funès's filmography because there is a genuine feeling of contained mutual enmity beneath the simulated malice.

Oscar is about a thoroughly venal specimen of humanity (i.e. company director) being driven to the brink of insanity by his intolerance and mistrust of others.  It is Funès's real neuroses and prejudices - exacerbated by his unhappy relationship with the director and certain cast members - that give the film its savage sense of reality and make it so irresistibly funny.  Otherwise it would have just have been a silly Feydeau-like farce or, worse, a dull comedy like its 1991 American remake directed by John Landis, in which Sylvester Stallone proves that, whatever other talents he may have, he is no substitute for Louis de Funès.

Rather than hide the theatrical origins of the film, Molinaro goes out of his way to emphasise this fact.  The story plays out in real time and is confined mostly to one enormous set, a brilliant creation from designer Georges Wakewitch which makes de Funès's character look like a housefly buzzing about in a jar.  Some imaginative camerawork, tracking vertically and horizontally around the spacious main set, complements the screwball performances and at no point does the film feel static or stagy.  Molinaro and his team create an impression of constant motion, so that the film soon resembles a clockwork toy going berserk.

It is the classic French farce, with a seemingly endless barrage of mix-ups and misunderstandings resulting in some all too predictable humour (the 'mistaken suitcase gag' is exploited to ludicrous extremes), but Louis de Funès grabs it with both hands and turns it into the comedy equivalent of Shakespeare's King Lear.  He isn't just funny - hilariously so in the famous sequence where he mimes a cartoonish self-mutilation after the final humiliation - he also brings a genuine pathos to the film.  Oscar is a relentlessly funny film and what makes it so hilarious is not the scripted comedy but de Funès's all-too-convincing portrayal of a nasty man's descent into Hell.  When the tyrant falls, brought down by his own self-interested mischief, we can either jeer or laugh.  De Funès invariably makes us laugh.

Film Synopsis

Bertrand Barnier is a rich businessman whose pride and joy is his designer house in which he leads a tranquil life with his wife Germaine and daughter Colette.  Barnier's well-ordered life is about to be yanked into troubled waters when one of his employees, Christian Martin, shows up first thing one morning with two unreasonable demands.  Martin not only wants to marry his boss's daughter, he also wants a big increase in his salary - to keep his future wife in the manner to which she has grown accustomed.  If there is one thing that Bertrand Barnier cannot tolerate at this early hour it is bare-faced importunity, so naturally he says 'non' to both of Christian's requests.

Not one to be beaten, the young man continues trying to make a good impression on his boss by telling him that he has amassed a sizeable fortune by embezzling the company's funds.  With his ill-gotten gains, Christian has bought a suitcase full of precious jewels, which he now offers to Barnier in exchange for his daughter.  Of course, this puts a completely different complexion on the matter!  To get his money back, Barnier has no choice but to agree to the marriage.  The revelation that his daughter is pregnant removes any doubts in the businessman's mind that he is doing the right thing.

Unfortunately, what neither men knows is that Christian's girlfriend has deceived him over her identity.  The woman in question, Jacqueline, was lying when she told Christian that her father was Barnier.  Before this fact is revealed to him, the businessman has another shock in store: it seems his daughter Colette is pregnant, but by his former chauffeur Oscar, who went off on a polar expedition after being dismissed.  Barnier now has two problems to contend with - finding a suitable husband for his daughter to avoid a scandal and recovering the money that Christian has stolen from him.  Is it possible that he can kill two birds with one stone...?