L'oeil du monocle

A franchise which was probably the best spy thrillers France had to offer ;none of the Coplan,OSS 117 ,Vicomte and others can't hold a candle to James Bond 007.

Yet ,the Monocle series -which is a trilogy-was something different ;it was some kind of forerunner of the spoofs on OSS 117 in which Jean Dujardin would shine .But unlike his character ,Le Monocle is very smart and ,unlike so many Froggies heroes of the two-bit spy thrillers of the sixties ,Paul Meurisse ("les diaboliques" "la vérité") gave his secret agent a strong personality : deadpan sense of humor,fin gourmet fond of caviar and champagne, and an artful devil .Two characters (Elga Andersen's and Robert Dalban's )appear in another movie of the trilogy. The gorgeous Monocle'girls -there are two of them in this episode-are not bimbos but rivals working for foreign countries .Except for the principal ,they show themselves smarter than the male characters .

Although the movie deals with the treasure the Nazis would have hidden -a story told ,told and TOLD,see the last Indiana J. - ,although there's a lot of deaths -so many you can't count them all - , the screenplay constantly remains tongue-in-chick (how to bump the witnesses when you hide a colossal fortune in a cave-and should )and this cock-and-bull story not be taken seriously ;but humor , lines which hit home, and Meurisse' s presence easily make up for it.