Philippe Clair

Prosper Charles Bensoussan professionally known as Philippe Clair (14 September 1930 – 28 November 2020) was a Moroccan-French actor, director, producer, screenwriter, and popular humorist. Along with fellow French directors Max Pécas and Richard Balducci, his name is synonymous with the golden age of camp and low comedy in French cinema. He went on to use band member Aldo Maccione in The Great Maffia, Plus beau que moi, tu meurs [More beautiful than me, you die], and Tais-toi quand tu parles! [Shut up when you talk]. He made several surreal films, such as Le Führer en folie [The Fuhrer Runs Amok], which featured Henri Tisot in the role of Adolf Hitler and in which Michel Galabru plays the role of a football referee. In 1984, he managed the greatest coup of his career by casting Jerry Lewis in the film Par où t'es rentré ? On t'a pas vu sortir [How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave].

In 2013 journalist and filmmaker Gilles Botineau joined with Philippe Clair to produce a documentary portrait titled, Plus drôle que lui, tu meurs [Funnier than him, you die]. The film, lasting 55 minutes covered Clair's entire career, focusing especially on his vision of comedy. Clair retired in 1990 at the age of 60. However, he returned with a production he wrote in 2013 titled, Help, Philippe Clair returns.

Reception Philippe Clair was not always treated kindly by the critics. Critic John Tulard in the "Dictionary of French directors" said, "His work is incredibly stupid and vulgar". The weekly French magazineTélérama opined, "Every film by Philippe Clair is worse than the last, and yet it never stops".

In the 1980s Clair's style of popular comedy went out of favor in France and he stopped producing films. But critic Louis Skorecki maintained that the 1996 film La Vérité si je mens! [Would I Lie to You?], a classic Jewish-Algerian comedy, was simply a remake of Philippe Clair's first film, Click and slaps.

Filmography 1962 Girl on the Road (dir. Jacqueline Audry), as Le motard #2 1965 Déclic et des claques (Clicks and Slaps) 1971 (The Great Java) 1971 (The Great Maffia) 1973 (The Mad Brigade) 1974 (The Führer Runs Amok) 1976 (The Great Braggart) 1978 (How to Reform) 1978 (The Reformers are Doing Well) 1979 (Those Strange Cops From Elsewhere) 1980 (Rodriguez in the Land of Merguez) 1981 (Shut Up When You Talk) 1982 (More Beautiful Than Me, You Die) 1984 Par où t'es rentré ? On t'a pas vu sortir (How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave) 1986 Si t'as besoin de rien... fais-moi signe (If You Need Anything, Let Me Know) 1987 (If You Go to Rio ... You Die) 1990 (Extraordinary Adventure of an Ordinary Papa)