Bonjour l'angoisse

The screenplay is a collaboration between the director and comics writer /drawer Gotlib ("Hamster Jovial" was a memorable spoof on the scouts).Here ,that artist is not as daring as he is in his comics ;the story is conventional and sometimes distastefully bourgeois,notably in an almost unbearable last scene of wedding.

The director puts his trust in the actors and he cannot be wrong with all the good thespians of the cast :Guy Marchand,Jean-Pierre Bacri,Pierre Arditi and Hubert Deschamps ,as deaf as Hergé 's professor Tournesol aka Calculus.

And of course Michel Serrault :Pierre Tchernia put the weight on him and he effortlessly carried it.An executive in an alarm system firm,he is ,in the first part,a self-conscious man à la Walter Mitty,who dreams his life away,being involved in gangsters stories in Chicago circa 1930 ,or as a fighter pilot during WW2.In his routine nine to five life,he has an imaginary double ,who tells him again and again he must have confidence and trust himself.

Abetted by this Doppelganger,the second part sees the timid executive become some kind of sleuth ,which was predictable considering his stunning gift for mental arithmetic and logic .

Good scenes :

-the coffee machine out of order,and how our hero can give a cup to his colleague all the same!

-the trap for his dishonest colleague,with its sweet female voice,talking as it was advertising a paradisaical place.

That said ,it is a very average comedy ,saved,I say it again,by its actors