Jean-Marie Poiré's Le Père Noël est une ordure | Father Christmas Is a Stinker (1982)

Another English title which makes me cringe, but this is also another from Le Splendid, the café-théâtre in the fourth arrondissement that has produced so much talent: this film is adapted from the play of the same name. And it's crazy, far crazier than the later Le Dîner de cons. This is Christmas, and we're in the office of a concern helping potential suicidal cases and depressives. What begins relatively calmly turns into mayhem, with lives threatened and an accidental killing. I can't imagine this film being made today as it oversteps boundaries of political correctness.

Here we have Pierre Mortez (Thierry Lhermite) and Thérèse (Anémone) as volunteers for SOS Détresse Amitié assailed by numerous problems: transvestite Katia (Christian Clavier) more or less forcing Pierre to dance with him; a pregnant Josette (Marie-Anne Chazel) trying to hide from her crazy and violent companion Félix (Gérard Jugnot) who's dressed as Father Christmas; Pierre and Josette's colleague Marie-Ange Musquin (Josiane Balasko) stuck in the lift; and neighbour Monsieur Preskovitch pressing them to eat his terrible Bulgarian food.

Things turn into absolute mayhem when Félix brings a gun in and accidentally shoots Katia in the leg. Then Josette accidentally shoots the lift maintenance man dead and what can they do with the body? Saw it up into little pieces in the kitchen and pack it into Christmas boxes, of course. Which they do, and throw them to the leopards, lions and bears in the zoo. Meanwhile, of course, the SOS agency takes a back seat.

Insane, escapist fun that only the French seem to just about get away with.