Il magnifico detective

Imagine you are looking at one of those awful Matt Helm movies that Dean Martin made in the late 1960s. Now imagine there are no production values. That's what this movie is like.

This is, of course, French cinema; and this is a Lemmy Caution movie and the New Wave was so enamored of this series that Goddard made one of the movies: ALPHAVILLE. Imagine, if you will, that Spielberg wanted to make a Little Rascals movie.... wait. He did. It was THE GOONIES. Well, imagine, then, that Tarrantino wanted to make a Blaxploitation movie. Wait, he did. That was Jackie Brown. Well then imagine that Coppola wanted to make a Hammer Horror film.....

Well, I'm not getting far with this. I was about to suggest that Ang Lee wanted to make kung fu movies and that John Ford wanted to make westerns. You can, I suppose, turn almost anything into art with talent and resources, but this movie is not one of those pieces of art. It is the sort of mindless entertainment that we all want occasionally, junk food of the cinema. The problem with critics is that, like us, they bring their own personal aesthetics to a movie. Unlike us, they cannot admit to liking a couple of hours off from Great Cinema and so invent endless excuses for why their own personal preference in junk is superior to your personal preference in junk. They focus on the incidental details and make them the point. They can't see the forest for the trees.

My advice: if you enjoy this awful crap, enjoy it. Have some Necco Wafers or Twiglets while you're watching it. But don't tell yourself it is art.

After seeing the first half hour of LEMMY POUR LES DAMES(1961)and really finding it awful and turning it off,I said to myself to give Lemmy one more chance with COMMENT QU'ELLE EST! and he,it was not that bad at all. I can't say that it's good but at least it's watchable!

It is a general opinion that ALPHAVILLE is the best Lemmy Caution of them all,probably because of Godard.I haven't seen that film yet but I intend to.

COMMENT QU'ELLE EST! is pretty enjoyable brainless fun and Eddie Constantine is for once not completely annoying. The supporting cast is not bad,especially Andre Luguet and Robert Berri give away good performances.

But still,it's miles away from the French greats. 6/10