La Moutarde me monte au nez (1974)
Directed by Claude Zidi

Film Review

Pierre Richard teams up with Jane Birkin in this rip-roaring comedy, a laugh-a-minute farce which is filled with gloriously over-the-top comic situations.  It's pure madness from start to finish, and whilst the comedy does flag in a few places (as the plot struggles bravely to keep up), somehow the jokes manage to keep coming.  As ever, Pierre Richard, that unsurpassed clown of film comedy, is irresistibly funny as director Claude Zidi steers him through some of his most hilarious (and humiliating) comic routines.  Actor Claude Piéplu also gets one of his best screen moments in the scene where he portrays a surgeon applying his own peculiar idea of stress management - whilst operating on an unsuspecting patient.

Film Synopsis

A teacher at a girls' school in Aix-en-Provence, Pierre Durois finds he has an aptitude for writing which others are more than willing to exploit.  His father, Hubert Durois, is a distinguished surgeon and mayoral candidate who relies on Pierre to write all of his election speeches.  His journalist friend Patrick is equally dependent on Pierre to proofread an article he has written on the famous actress Jackie Logan.  It so happens that Patrick's paper is owned by Albert Renaudin, Hubert Durois's competitor in the forthcoming mayoral election.  Pierre's ghost-writing activities would have passed off without incident were it not that one of his pupils decides, just for a lark, to swap the contents of three of his files, with the result that Hubert's speech and Patrick's article get misdelivered.  In his attempt to recover the mixed up documents and return them to their rightful owners Pierre gets himself caught up in a bizarre series of events which cause him to end up in Jacky Logan's bedroom one evening.  Albert Renaudin listens attentively as Pierre recounts this extraordinary night, as it is just the kind of juicy sensationalism his scurrilous newspaper thrives on.  It may also give a boost to his mayoral campaign.  As a scandal looms, Jacky takes the initiative by announcing to the world that she and Pierre are planning to get married.  For Pierre's father this revelation is disastrous.  It could well spell the end of his political career...