Animal (1977)

The funny misadventures of a dating duo of film stunt professionals in France.

Director:

Claude Zidi

Writers:

Michel Audiard (dialogue), Michel Audiard (screenplay)

Stars:

Jean-Paul Belmondo, Raquel Welch, Dany Saval

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jean-Paul Belmondo	...	Mike Gaucher et Bruno Ferrari
Raquel Welch	...	Jane Gardner
Dany Saval	...	Doris
Raymond Gérôme	...	Le comte de Saint-Prix
Jane Birkin	...	La vedette féminine
Johnny Hallyday	...	La vedette masculine
Yves Mourousi	...	Himself
Charles Gérard	...	Hyacinthe
Claude Chabrol	...	Le metteur en scène
Mario David	...	Santos, le Gitan
Henri Génès	...	Camille, le patron du bistrot
Julien Guiomar	...	Fechner
Aldo Maccione	...	Sergio Campanese
Jacques Alric	...	Le maître d'hôtel
Henri Attal	...	Un assistant

Storyline

A movie about a good-for-nothing stuntman called Mike Gaucher who can't do one single job without something going wrong. His fiancée wants to kill him, the film studios don't want to give him any more work and, as King Kong for a promotion in a supermarket, he winds up destroying some display shelves. The only role he plays well is pretending not to be able to hear, speak and walk in order to get money from the government. Then along comes the "beautiful" actor called Bruno Ferrari. Supposedly a fearless stuntman, Ferrari turns out to be afraid of heights once his feet leave the ground. So a stuntman is needed to prevent a scandal. And who is the man who looks most (or exactly) like Bruno? You guessed it, good-for-nothing Mike...

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Plot Keywords:

stuntman | welfare fraud | paris france | stunt | stuntwoman | 

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

5 October 1977 (France)

Also Known As:

Stuntwoman

Filming Locations:

Rue Caulaincourt, Paris 18, Paris, France

Box Office

Budget:

FRF25,000,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$7,196,268

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cerito Films, Les Films Christian Fechner

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

After a couple of under performing movies (by Belmondo's high standards anyway), he returns with this movie which was the 5th highest grossing movie of its year in France.

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Alternate Versions

The U.S. dubbed video version doesn't include the scenes where Belmondo pretends to be mentally handicapped to fool the inspectors of social service.

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Connections

References King Kong (1933)

User Reviews

Heavy-handed comedy

It all starts with an ugly animated credit sequence focusing on a funky lion. Would that be the Animal in the title? OK, but it's hardly relevant with the character played by Belmondo.

The comedy aims to be wild with Belmondo hamming his double-part full-throttle. It may be funny to a 5-year old; for a grown-up it looks like tired jokes with heavy-handed direction in gross situations (the gay movie-star, the crooked and clumsy stunt double). Raquel Welch is beautiful and quite a relief compared to her partner.

Overall it smells like a big budget dilapidated into big stunt jokes, in turn dwarfed by the would-be burlesque tone. Somehow Claude Zidi must have been thinking the Marx Brothers had become famous for silly over-the-top gags devoid of any subtlety...