First sequence : a worker sweats in smelting works .Then he awakes in the luminous country landscape :
-Grandpa ,I dreamed I was working!
-It was only a nightmare ,sonny ,don't worry.
An orphan , Antoine was carefully taught by his grandfather : you shall never work, laziness is the best way of life.
After the death of his guardian , Antoine discovers that grandpa's line of least effort led them to financial disaster ; a penniless orphan ,left in the cold , what can you do my poor child? The notary says .From then on, one might expect a classic melodrama.
Pas du tout .
De Broca's film is a delightful comedy,sparkling like champagne .Jean-Pierre Cassel is dazzling and effortlessly wins over the viewer ;the story only knows one tempo :accelerated .A paean to sloth , inconsiderateness
with consummate skill , and a good deal of luck :as Belmondo looked like Tintin in "l'homme de Rio" , Cassel is some kind of Carl Barks' Gladstone
Gander (=Gontran Bonheur).
"Un monsieur de compagnie" looks like a film made of sketches,but when it's over ,it's actually a seamless whole , with an absolutely mind-boggling last sequence ,which I will not spoil ,of course .
Memorable scenes :
Antoine , hired by a (gay?) prince as a station master of ....a huge model train set ; but Jean-Claude Brialy , true to form, takes schedule seriously and is ,so to speak, a workaholic, and work is a nuisance to the hero who , taking advantage of a strike(!) ,takes to his heels .
Antoine, pretending to be a mourner during the funeral of a wealthy lawyer (Adolfo Celi) 's son ,and to be the late young man's best friend ,so he can be given room and board in a luxury mansion.
But there 's more to be savored in this excellent satire with the most immoral conclusion you can get ;there's even poetry thrown in for good measure :the fleeting appearances of Catherine Deneuve all along the movie are lovingly filmed and Georges Delerue's score highly enhances them.
Too often overlooked in the sixties, De Broca's works ,in the adventures field ("l'homme de Rio" ,"Cartouche" and its dazzling finale) ,or in the comedies (which have nothing to do with the dominant genre such as Oury's works), have remarkably stood the test of time ; "le roi de coeur ", considered his most ambitious works ,is more known and praised abroad.
