***SPOILERS*** After a blotched robbery with half a dozen people, including an eight year old boy, getting killed American gangster Jimmy Cobb, Lee Marvin, is on the run, with the French Police hot on his tail, in the French countryside with the couple of million dollars he heisted.
Burying the money in a nearby wheat field Jimmy doesn't realize that he's been spotted by 13 year-old Chim,David Bennent, who's got big plans for himself in becoming the towns next Godfather. Drgging up the money when Jimmy was still on the run Chim replaces it with a bag full of rocks and uses most of it to party around town, like drinking booze smoking cigars and carousing around with hookers, thus throwing suspicion on himself. Back at Chim's family's farm where Jimmys hiding out the man of the house, I'm not quite sure what relationship he has to Chim, the piggish and coarse Horace-Victor Lanoux-is busy abusing, whom I assume is Chim's older sister, his wife Jessica,Miou-Miou. It's in this strange and dangerous environment that the fugitive Jimmy Cobb finds himself in.
It doesn't take that long for Horace's family that includes his always drunk brother Socrate, Jean Carmet, and nymphomaniac sister Segolene, Bernadette Lafont, to discover Jimmy and hold him hostage until the police arrive with them getting a fat reward for his capture. It's later when the greedy Horace decides to get Jimmy to tell him where he hid the millions of dollars he stole, and keep it all for himself, that things begin to get a bit crazy at the Horace Farm. Crazy enough to have Jimmy want not only to be capture but even end up dead in order to avoid being stuck with the Horace crew! Which to Jimmy would be a fate far worse then death itself!
A number of side plots in the movie have to do with Horace and his wife Jessica trying to use Jimmy as a scapegoat in crimes that they themselves plan and end up committing. This in both Horace & Jessica knowing that that the fugitive from the law Jimmy, not them, will end up being blamed for them. There's also the tragic domestic, or house maid, Gusta-Marguerite Muni-who's always being threaten by Horace to be sent to a nursing home. This in Horace knowing perfectly well that she's terrified of being sent there and would end up killing herself if she was.
The movie soon get completely out of hand with Jimmy, the man on the spot, getting romantically involved with Jessica who's using him as a pasty or fall guy in the planned murder of her abusive husband Horace. This all leads to Jimmy ending up murdering, as well as being framed for murdering, at least another half dozen, not including those killed in the bank holdup, persons by the time the movie is finally over!
***SPOILER ALERT*** With the money gone and him having no hope for escaping the police dragnet Jimmy's only hope now is to get himself killed and finally be put out of is misery. Even that wish on Jimmys part is in jeopardy with the Al Capone or John Gottie wannabe Chim, now calling himself Aniro De La Crouchie, wanting to capture Jimmy alive and become famous for doing it!
As it turned jimmy did deny, by personally blowing his own brains out, Chim from taking him alive but it was fun loving Doudo Doudo, Joseph Mono, the grease monkey and all around handyman at the Horace Fram who ended up with all the stolen cash. The perpetually lucky Doudo Doudo came across the stolen money, after Chim dug it up and reburied it, and thus ended up not only leaving the crazy Horace place but moving into a swanky penthouse in Paris and ended up living happily ever after.
Burying the money in a nearby wheat field Jimmy doesn't realize that he's been spotted by 13 year-old Chim,David Bennent, who's got big plans for himself in becoming the towns next Godfather. Drgging up the money when Jimmy was still on the run Chim replaces it with a bag full of rocks and uses most of it to party around town, like drinking booze smoking cigars and carousing around with hookers, thus throwing suspicion on himself. Back at Chim's family's farm where Jimmys hiding out the man of the house, I'm not quite sure what relationship he has to Chim, the piggish and coarse Horace-Victor Lanoux-is busy abusing, whom I assume is Chim's older sister, his wife Jessica,Miou-Miou. It's in this strange and dangerous environment that the fugitive Jimmy Cobb finds himself in.
It doesn't take that long for Horace's family that includes his always drunk brother Socrate, Jean Carmet, and nymphomaniac sister Segolene, Bernadette Lafont, to discover Jimmy and hold him hostage until the police arrive with them getting a fat reward for his capture. It's later when the greedy Horace decides to get Jimmy to tell him where he hid the millions of dollars he stole, and keep it all for himself, that things begin to get a bit crazy at the Horace Farm. Crazy enough to have Jimmy want not only to be capture but even end up dead in order to avoid being stuck with the Horace crew! Which to Jimmy would be a fate far worse then death itself!
A number of side plots in the movie have to do with Horace and his wife Jessica trying to use Jimmy as a scapegoat in crimes that they themselves plan and end up committing. This in both Horace & Jessica knowing that that the fugitive from the law Jimmy, not them, will end up being blamed for them. There's also the tragic domestic, or house maid, Gusta-Marguerite Muni-who's always being threaten by Horace to be sent to a nursing home. This in Horace knowing perfectly well that she's terrified of being sent there and would end up killing herself if she was.
The movie soon get completely out of hand with Jimmy, the man on the spot, getting romantically involved with Jessica who's using him as a pasty or fall guy in the planned murder of her abusive husband Horace. This all leads to Jimmy ending up murdering, as well as being framed for murdering, at least another half dozen, not including those killed in the bank holdup, persons by the time the movie is finally over!
***SPOILER ALERT*** With the money gone and him having no hope for escaping the police dragnet Jimmy's only hope now is to get himself killed and finally be put out of is misery. Even that wish on Jimmys part is in jeopardy with the Al Capone or John Gottie wannabe Chim, now calling himself Aniro De La Crouchie, wanting to capture Jimmy alive and become famous for doing it!
As it turned jimmy did deny, by personally blowing his own brains out, Chim from taking him alive but it was fun loving Doudo Doudo, Joseph Mono, the grease monkey and all around handyman at the Horace Fram who ended up with all the stolen cash. The perpetually lucky Doudo Doudo came across the stolen money, after Chim dug it up and reburied it, and thus ended up not only leaving the crazy Horace place but moving into a swanky penthouse in Paris and ended up living happily ever after.