Pas de caviar pour tante Olga (1965)
Directed by Jean Becker

Film Review

Son and assistant of the famous filmmaker Jacques Becker (Casque d'or, Touchez pas au grisbi), Jean Becker became a film director in his own right in 1961 with a first film entitled Un nommé la Rocca, with future star Jean-Paul Belmondo. This film has much in common with his father's work, crafted with elegance and a certain modesty. After La Rocca, Jean Becker went on to make two other popular successes, Échappement libre (1964) and Tendre voyou (1966).  It was not until his 1983 film L'Éte meurtrier that he was taken seriously as a filmmaker by the critics.  His third film could not be more different.  Released on 13th August 1965, Pas de caviar pour tante Olga is a nonsensical spy comedy based on a novel by Charles Exbrayat. 

Throughout the film it is evident that Becker is struggling to find his own style, and despite Henri Jeanson's witty dialogue the comedy is overplayed and often silly.  Far removed from Becker's other films, this pastiche of the spy thriller (one of the most popular genres of the time, thanks to James Bond's arrival in the movies) marks the low-point of Becker's career.  Even though the film has a stunning cast (that includes such superb performers as Pierre Brasseur, Sophie Daumier, Pierre Vernier, Francis Blanche, Pierre Bertin and Noël Roquevert), the film was a commercial failure.  I remember seeing it at the Metropole cinema in Brussels and, in common with many others who liked the film, look forward to seeing it again on DVD one day.

Film Synopsis

At the NATO offices in Paris, where she was hired as a cleaner, Rosa Patache manages to steal for her lover Alexis Narenev a microfilm known in the spies' code as 'Aunt Olga's caviar'.  After carefully hiding the microfilm in her lipstick, Rosa goes straight to a Catholic boarding house to collect Lily, her illegitimate eight-year-old daughter, who has been in the care of the nuns there since childhood.  Leaving for Lyon, where Alexis is waiting for her, Rosa hopes that once she has delivered the microfilm Alexis will marry her and become a father for Lily.  Rosa is wrong because Alexis has just received instructions from his superiors to leave immediately for Milan, to hand over the secret document to an agent of the network managed by the mysterious Mr Casimir.  However some unforeseen events caused by Lily conspire to thwart Alexis's plans...