Claude Zidi

Director

July 25, 1934 (91 years)

Paris, France

Biography

Claude Zidi (born 25 July 1934) is a French film director and screenwriter who is noted for his mainstream burlesque comedies. Born in Paris, he started as a cameraman and then a cinematographer, and he made his directorial and screenwriting debut in 1971. He won the César Award for Best Director for My New Partner, for which he was also nominated for Best Writing. Source: Article "Claude Zidi" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Filmography

6.0

Asterix and Obelix Take On Caesar

Set in 50 B.C., Asterix and Obelix are living in a small but well-protected village in Gaul, where a magic potion concocted by Druids turns the townsfolk into mighty soldiers. When Roman troops carve a path through Gaul to reach the English Channel, Caesar and his aide de camp Detritus discover the secret elixir and capture the Druid leader who knows its formula, and Asterix and Obelix are sent off to rescue them.

6.1

Animal

Mike (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a stuntman who works with his girlfriend Jane (Raquel Welch). On their wedding day Mike and Jane are forced by producers to do a stunt for a film they are working on. Mike, annoyed doesn't look on the road and crashes the car causing them to end up in a hospital. After they come out Jane doesn't want to talk to Mike so he decides to get her a job in a film in which he is a stunt double for his double who is a star in action pictures but is in fact a wimp.

6.5

The Under-Gifted

The story centers around a graduating class of "less-gifted" students in a private Versailles high school. Only a miracle has brought the students this far along, and after a practical joke misfires and the whole school is dynamited, the students are in deep trouble. They have to present themselves in court for their punishment and it could not be worse: If they don't pass their high-school graduation exams, they go to prison!

6.1

Rookies Go to War

A Grand Slapstick comedy about four buddies serving in the army. Their long-suffering sergeant attempts to whip them into shape but the conflict spirals out of control.

6.6

My New Partner

A streetwise Paris policeman who takes kickbacks from the minor criminals on his beat to allow them to continue is assigned an idealistic new partner fresh from police academy. He sets out to corrupt him...

7.2

The Wing or the Thigh?

Charles Duchemin, a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, is waging a war against fast food entrepreneur Tri- catel to save the French art of cooking. After having agreed to appear on a talk show to show his skills in naming food and wine by taste, he is confronted with two disasters: his son wants to become a clown rather than a restaurant tester and he, the famous Charles Duchemin, has lost his taste!

5.8

The Jackpot!

To his family, François Voisin is nothing more than a humdrum civil servant. In truth, for the past twenty years he has been working as a secret agent. All goes well until circumstances put his secret in danger.

5.4

Les Sous-Doués En Vacances

A group of friends are planning how to spend their summer vacation. One plans to go to the Seychelles with his American girlfriend. At the airport she dumps him for another guy. He has no money so he steals a backpack and goes camping. Somehow he meets a pretty girl and convinces her to share his tent. But a famous singer sees the girl and wants her too. He convinces the luckless guy to act like a fool and the girl leaves him and goes with the singer to the French Rivera.

6.3

Inspector Blunder

A detective, fresh out of the academy (lowest mark in class), gets the assignment to bodyguard a spoiled rich girl reporter. She's been interviewed on TV and has questioned the virility of a mobster who kidnaps her later.

6.4

The Discord

Guillaume has made it: A machine that can clean dirty air by simply sucking all dirt into air balloons and then shipping them far far away so his explanation. Some Japanese business guys, after dinner with a lot of alcohol, order 5,000 pieces. His only problem: His production capacity is way to small so he gets to produce the machines in his private house. His wife Bernadette is far from being happy about it. Her private life goes down the line so she decides to leave Guillaume and to finally have revenge she candidates for major against her husband...

6.0

Stadium Nuts

Les Charlots, a French rock group, continue their adventures, in the manner of the Beatles in Hard Day's Night. This is their second adventure. The foursome are on holiday, camping outside a village. The Olympic flame is going to pass through the village. A grocer, charged to prepare a celebration, calls upon the four to help. One of the four falls for the grocer's daughter. However, she runs away after the sportsman carrying the flame. The foursome set of to find her and win her back.

6.2

Banzaï

Michel works there manically solving people's problems over the phone. He is about to tie the knot with his girl friend Isabelle, an airline hostess. She flies all over the world, he hates to leave the office. A series of madcap mishaps involving theft or injury (as you would expect in his line of work) ensues after Michel promises Isabelle nothing will delay their marriage and she promises in turn that she's done flying. Once this unlikely promise is made, it becomes premise and both are forced into escalating white lies to maintain the appearance of keeping their word. Their predicament mounts as Isabelle is forced to do a few more flights, while Michel is compelled to travel to New York, Tunisia, and finally Hong Kong, where they are finally reunited in the throes of a contrived and hilarious drug deal involving a 747, water taxi chases, and martial arts.

6.3

The Big Store

Four guys working for a small grocer in trouble, declare war on a new giant neighborhood supermarket by attempting several coups. A film about the big store taking over the business of smaller stores.

6.0

My New Partner II

The partners are back and are in a tight spot! Francois is going through a moral crisis, and Rene is experiencing the same. But, honesty is not always the best policy. After being suspended for their actions, they return to face their far more crooked replacements.

5.3

My New Partner III

It's been ten years since the paths of René and François parted ways. From the glorious era when, as cops, they roamed the Montmartre district, they only have a handful of memories left, the money from their cronies having evaporated over time. Everything comes to an end. Until it starts again.

5.2

Low Profile

A disillusioned police detective, used as a scapegoat by his corrupted superior, fights back by becoming a competent criminal.

6.1

The Wild Goose Chase

The whole intrigue is centered around carte-blanche documents kept in a vault. Whoever fills in the blank becomes the owner of a revue. Big money is involved. The nephew of the owner of the vault is trying to cheat his uncle and have his name in the documents. Everything is even more complicated because the manager of the bank has a finger in the pie, too. Who but a humble bank-teller (Pierre Richard) will ruin the scheme?

6.0

I'm Losing My Temper

Pierre is a clumsy, overly serious math teacher at an all-girls high school. His life is thrown into chaos after encountering a beautiful British actress and the paparazzi that follow her around.

5.6

Rookies Run Amok

Les Bidasses en Folie, a french movie from 1971, is a very short, easy to watch, slapstick hippie comedy.

5.4

Arlette

An actor owes big bucks to the Vegas mob. He's all set to pay them off; he's conned a rich widow into marrying him. But the mobsters blow his cover because they need him for a different scam. The lost heiress to a Vegas casino fortune has been found; she's a truckstop waitress in France. The mobsters' proposition: romance the broad, and get hitched. Or else. Then the crooks can bump her off and keep the casino for themselves...