Pétrole! Pétrole! (1981)
Directed by Christian Gion

Film Review

One of the few films from director Christian Gion that has just about stood the test of time, Pétrole! Pétrole! is a chaotic comedy inspired by the oil crises of the 1970s. In common with many mainstream French comedies of this period, the film has a tendency for abject silliness of the worse kind, but amid the dross there are one or two decent laughs to be had. Despite a script which appears to have come out of an infants' school, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Bernard Blier somehow manage to turn in some decent performances, although Blier clearly has a job portraying an oil sheik with any conviction. How to humiliate a great actor, step 1: stick a tea towel on his head and get him to impersonate an Arab. The political incorrectness of it all is enough to make you laugh.

Film Synopsis

Jean-Marie Tardel, the owner of a large petroleum company, becomes anxious when his supplier, the Emir Abdullah, announces he intends increasing the price of a barrel of crude oil by seven per cent.  Adding to these woes is the shock news that a garage attendant, Bernard Bérian, has just won a bid to supply petrol from Africa, undercutting all of his competitors.  The effect of these two developments will be to drive Tardel out of business, unless he can come up with an ingenious solution.

Hearing the Emir is about to make a visit to Paris, Tardel has his chance to save himself from ruin.  Without delay, he hastens to meet Abdullah as his plane comes into land, not knowing that he is about to be forced into abdicating.  It turns out that the main reason for the Emir's visit to France is to find his illegitimate child, the fruit of an illicit affair he had when he was a student.  How unfortunate that the missing child should be Liza Bérian, the wife of the new oil baron who threatens to drive Tardel to bankruptcy...