Perphaps the lowest point in Jerry Lewis's career. In the early eighties, he tried to revive his career by starring in some french movies, because he still had some following there (not anymore, I hast to say) Alas, he made the mistake of working with two of France's lowest comedy directors, Michel Gérard (who made with him "Retenez-moi ou je fais un malheur") and Philippe Clair, director of the present jewel. While Gérard's pictures were dumb but innocuous, Clair's were the most outrageously vulgar, shrill, crass movies ever to soil a french screen. Philippe Clair started as a minor comic actor playing a stereotypical jewish "pied-noir" (the pied-noir are the frenchmen born in Algeria while this it was a french territory) But he gained true fame as the country's crassest comedy director from the early 70s to hte late 80s. Here Lewis plays lousy detective Clovis Blaireau, and -hold yourself - he is awfully dubbed in french with a heavy "pied-noir" accent. Part of the film relies on the comical side of the pied-noir folklore, which is so alien to Lewis that it takes an almost surreal quality. Philippe Clair was so happy to have lured Lewis into his fiasco that he gave himself second billing, and acts as Lewis's sidekick and accomplishes the feat of making him look like a subtle performer. The rest of the cast consists of regulars from French shclock cinema like Marthe Villalonga and Jackie Sardou. It is nice, however, to see american performer Jess Hahn popping up as a baddy in one of his last roles. Watch also for Connie Nielsen in one of her first parts ! She's gone a logn way since then, with "Gladiator"... In summary, the film is a loud, dumb pile of trash that nevertheless did rather well at the time in France and north african countries. Jerry Lewis was hoping the french would salvage his career but instead they nailed the last hole in its coffin !!
To enjoy this, you must be either drunk, or mentally challenged, or hate Lewis so much that you're ready to submit yourself to the ordeal of seeing this crap just in order to watch him humiliate himself in an unbelievable turd. If you like Jerry Lewis, though, (and unless you're an absolute completist) it is a real torture to watch !
