It may have hit the jackpot in the French box office of the time,but how painful it is to see an once great director come down ; after "la tulipe noire" ,an exciting swashbuckler ,and the suspenseful "repas des fauves", there's not a single Christian-Jaque movie you would recommend to a young person who does not know the diirector of such memorable works as " les disparus de Saint-Agil ""sortilèges" "boule de suif" and "Fanfan la Tulipe" ,to name but four.
Cocody is the chic part of Abidjan,Ivory Coast ; the country is the real star of the movie, as it was entirely filmed on location ; as for the screenplay ,it's an incoherent spate of clichés , which never succeeds ,neither as an adventures movie, nor as a comedy ; to attract both the French and the German audience ,the male star is Gallic (Marais) ,and the female one is Teutonic (the charming Lilo Pulver );both are extremely competent and go out of their way to enliven this cock and bull tale, including butterflies,diamonds,diplomats ,gangsters , tam tam call, secret society whose head "the panther " 's identity,unexpected identity is revealed in the last pictures.
Sixties pop star Nancy Holloway ,whose career was short-lived ,sings the title track;Gil Delamare -who would die shortly after ,in another movie by Christian-Jaque , does the stunts , namely the essential.
