Umbrella Coup

A French comedy. Grégoire is an actor who cannot get work. He goes to auditions, is refused, and nobody gives him a part. One day a man approaches him with an offer: he will act in a film, and for the rehearsal he must play one scene. The scene is an assassination. Grégoire thinks it is acting and touches a man with an umbrella. The man dies. The method is real: poison delivered through a needle in the tip of the umbrella. So Grégoire has committed a murder without knowing it, and he is now a problem for the people who used him. Men are put on him. He does not understand the situation. Even while running he still thinks a film is being shot; he takes his pursuers for actors and their guns for props and meets every dangerous moment as a performance. The humour comes from that misunderstanding, and Pierre Richard's style of clumsy comedy suits it. The narrative continues in sections on the Mediterranean coast and in Italy; the chases are its main spine. Pierre Richard, Valérie Mairesse and Gert Fröbe are in the cast. Gérard Oury directed; he was among the biggest earners in the French comic tradition. An enjoyable choice for anyone who likes classic French comedy and narratives built on misunderstanding. For a viewer expecting fine humour, the film rests on falling over.