Carambolages

Carambolagesⁱ is the story of Louis de Funes trying to be the head of MPEx.

He's nominally running a vacation company at 321 Champs Elysees, but I'm telling you, he's trying to be me. He refuses an ad campaign because what's with all these voluptuous women and tanned doods already! He wants to see death, he wants to see pain and human suffering. "Let's be blunt gentlemen - the fact that there's nothing macabre in this ad is pretty bad, and inefficient to boot which I don't intend to tolerate", he says. "The time of innocence is passed", he says, "We must inspire fear" he says. "Strong images. Epilepsy. Tuberculosis. Blood everywhere!" he says.

And whatever the boss wants, the boss gets. He takes a slight detour on his way to eating broiled baby to nix some posters. One's too big, the other too small, a third too complex, a fourth too simple and the fifth too expensive. That's it, and everyone has half an hour to come up with his idea. Tick tock.

Lovable character, isn't he ?

Then while describing how hard he's had it, the onctuous yesman points out that he can't have everything, which spawns a tirade. "Why not!" he wishes to know. "There are so many who have nothing, nothing at all. Why can't he have everything, so there's a certain equilibrium!"

Otherwise it's pretty flat '60s drama. The young (all the erections) vs the old (all the money), the boys (all the work) vs the girls (all the talk), corporate ladder sitcom, usual bullshit. I have no idea how people put up with it at the time, I have no idea who'd watch it today other than to point and laugh at people stupid enough to live that way. Historical detritus.

PS. (Father to daughter): Cocotte, n'agasse pas les malheurs.

1. 1963, by Marcel Bluwal, with Louis de Funes, Jean-Claude Brialy. [↩]