When an international arms dealer dies, he leaves his inheritance to his young widow. Since the inheritance includes a whole array of tactically and strategically important assets, various nations want to charm, influence or intimidate the said widow. A whole army of secret agents is ready to use all means fair or foul...

"Les Barbouzes" is a spoof of the spy genre. The first half of the movie is delectable : sharp, playful, cynical, silly. Sadly the quality of the movie descends, descends, descends... Near the end many a viewer will be sure to yawn with boredom.

The movie is at its cynical, quick-witted best when dissecting official lies and propaganda. The dead arms dealer is a depraved hyper-capitalist grown fat by fomenting war and oppressing the poor and innocent. His widow (a very beautiful Mireille Darc, by the way) is a successful ex-prostitute canny enough to have caught an ageing sensualist. However, a number of nations, chief among them the country of France, find it expedient to pretend that this was a great and good man, who died an admirable death. As a result the newspapers and television programmes carry nothing but loving praise, while the man's nasty intrigues get buried under the flowers and telegrams. Visitors tearfully evoke his humanity, his decency, his piety, his delicacy. By the same alchemy the young tart becomes a great lady who bears her grief with Christian heroism.

I'm pretty sure that many real-life criminals and dictators have been buried under similar circumstances...

I pick this movie for 3 reasons : 1) to plug my missing years in cinema history (at least, one movie each year since cinema has been invented) and here it's 1964. 2) to get back to my roots : i'm French but mostly i watch American productions thus i'm nearly ignorant about my culture ! 3) because movies allows time travels : today, the movies are so bad that it's better to search into the past to find original story, talented cast…

So here we have a black and white comedy about international spies during the cold war. I can't deny that there is some really funny moments, true inspiration and a love for the language. As seen in Le Professionnel, Lautner is a dynamic director and who practices a clear editing : we know where we go, we understand what happens even if it's an action movie with guns and fights !

However, the movie has the feel of a retirement home : the 4 spies are rather old men (almost 50 years) and whatever their talent, i can't believe Blier nor Blanche as active agents ! This heavy team meets in an old German castle and one more time, it smells old age, aggravated by the fact that they stay mostly inside it…

In short, the movie is worth of watching but unlikely to be in my classics

You can do nothing but laugh when you watch this one : spies from different countries try to get some plans owned by a rich man who died recently. The most important thing is the actors playing : this latter are at they best (Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Francis Blanche, Noel Roquevert, Robert Darban). Watch the movie on french to appreciate the actors speaking talent !