Originally posted on 10/6/19
I was bored one night back in 1973, so I drove ten miles to see this obscure (to me, anyway) foreign comedy that had a funny trailer. Not expecting much, I ended up having the time of my life (well, one of them, anyway) because this kooky little French romp turned out to be one of the funniest, wildest and most delightful farce comedies I'd ever seen.
Now, forty some-odd years later, THE MAD ADVENTURES OF "RABBI" JACOB (Film Movement Classics) is just as funny, just as wild, and somehow even more delightful because it has aged like fine bubbly champagne that gets up your nose and makes you giggle.
Popular, rubber-faced French comic Louis de Funès plays Victor Pivert, a diminutive hothead speeding cross-country to his daughter's wedding while berating his chaffeur Solomon and yelling at other drivers, especially the foreign ones (he hates Belgians, Germans, Englishmen, anyone who isn't French).
Somehow--I'm not going to go into it here--Pivert gets mixed up in violent political intrigue between two Middle Eastern countries and is fleeing on a moped with a revolutionary named Slimane (Claude Giraud), a gang of ruthless killers hot on their heels. And he can't depend on his chauffeur Solomon for help because he just fired him after finding out he was Jewish. (That wasn't the actual reason but it's an added factor.)
Then, somehow--I'm not going to go into it here--Pivert and Slimane assume the identities of a Hassidic rabbi named Jacob and his assistant. The real Rabbi Jacob is due to return to his French community after years in the U.S.A., and the imposters are welcomed by gleeful mobs of admirers as Pivert is expected to preside over the bar mitzvah of Jacob's nephew in addition to several other ceremonies and such of which he has absolutely no knowledge.
And as all this is going on, the little town is beseiged by Slimane's gun-blazing enemies, police detectives on the trail of Pivert because they think he's a killer, and Pivert's frantic wife who wants to throttle him for not showing up at their daughter's wedding.
Obviously I've tried to summarize the plot as well as possible, but it just can't come close to describing what a wonderfully wacky comic delight this movie is. Pivert may be the most lovable bigot in any film comedy, especially since we know he's eventually going to learn his lesson before it's over.
He has a hilarious talent for deadpan mugging (I love the part where he tries to get the attention of two cops by making faces at them) and the frantic, cartoonish physicality of Leon Errol. Not only that, but when he's eluding his would-be killers in a chewing gum factory he and they all end up sliding into a vat of the stuff and emerging as gooey green blobs.
As Pivert contends with these murderous political zealots (the actors play their roles wonderfully straight) I was reminded of Woody Allen's perilous comedic entanglements with South American revolutionaries in BANANAS.
Indeed, much of the raucous slapstick comedy in this film is just as intensely off-the-wall and often startlingly bent as anything Woody came up with in his early, funnier films.
The Tex Avery-level sight gags and outlandish situations come fast and furious. Pivert's nagging, spoiled wife berates him over the phone while working on a nervous patient (she's a dentist, of all things) and Pivert flees in a car with a boat on top that eventually goes into a lake and becomes a boat with a car on top.
His experiences in the Jewish community filled with well-wishers who adore him (as Rabbi Jacob) are both achingly funny and heartwarming without ever getting sappy. Needless to say, his daughter's belated wedding becomes the scene of a calamitous collision of all the different characters and plot elements that never lets up until the fadeout.
THE MAD ADVENTURES OF "RABBI" JACOB has a nice message of tolerance, but it shows it instead of preaching it to us and never lets it get in the way of the sparkling fun. If you're looking for a truly feelgood comedy that will have you giddy with joyful laughter, this is it.
Buy it at Film Movement
Blu-ray Features
Interview with co-screenwriter Danièle Thompson
New essay by author Phoebe Maltz Bovy
Sound: Mono
DVD Features
Interview with co-screenwriter Danièle Thompson
New essay by author Phoebe Maltz Bovy
Sound: Mono
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