A single day of chaos reveals how one industrialist lost his fortune and his sanity
In short: In the 1967 French comedy Oscar, an industrialist faces a relentless barrage of domestic and professional disasters. Between a pregnant daughter, a blackmailing accountant, and a series of misidentified suitcases, the protagonist struggles to maintain control as his life unravels in a frantic, high-stakes game of errors and mistaken identities.
The film centers on Bertrand Barnier, a wealthy businessman whose orderly world collapses over the course of one day. His troubles begin when his accountant, Christian Martin, demands a massive salary increase. To secure this raise, Martin reveals he has embezzled sixty million francs from the firm. When Barnier threatens legal action, Martin turns the tables, exposing that Barnier’s own tax filings are fraudulent. Trapped by this blackmail, Barnier is forced to promote his employee and navigate a web of lies involving his daughter, Colette, and a series of romantic entanglements.
The narrative complexity escalates through the recurring motif of a suitcase. The sixty million francs, converted into jewelry, are stashed in a bag that becomes the focal point of the household's confusion. As characters like the maid Bernadette, the masseur Philippe Dubois, and the chauffeur Oscar move through the house, the suitcase is repeatedly swapped, lost, and recovered. Barnier’s attempts to manipulate these exchanges to protect his assets lead to increasingly absurd situations, including a near heart attack when he discovers he has been holding clothes instead of his fortune.
The film, directed by Édouard Molinaro and featuring Louis de Funès, is based on a play by Claude Magnier. It explores the fragility of status and the absurdity of human greed. The plot reaches a fever pitch when Barnier discovers that his own past indiscretions have come back to haunt him, as he learns that his new maid’s daughter is actually his own child. Despite the eventual resolution of these personal conflicts, the final moments of the film emphasize the persistent chaos, as the characters scramble to retrieve the elusive suitcase of jewelry, proving that in this household, order is merely a temporary illusion.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Oscar (1967 film)
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