Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (1964)

The year is 1964. The French Riviera is a place where a man in a uniform can still be humiliated by a nude swimmer, and the national box office rewards the humiliation handsomely. Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez introduces Ludovic Cruchot, a gendarme of rigid bearing and volcanic temper, transferred from his quiet village to the fashionable coast, where he must contend with persistent naturists, a stolen Rembrandt, and a teenage daughter whose social ambitions outrun his salary. Jean Girault directs with the efficiency of a man who knows exactly which buttons to press and presses them in order.

The comedy runs on mistaken identity and physical escalation. Nicole, embarrassed by her father's modest station, invents a millionaire American father with a yacht and a red Mustang, a lie that collides with an actual gang of robbers and their purloined canvas. The nudists are chased, arrested, and played for slapstick titillation. The wealthy are props for a gag, never the target of an economic argument. The cast is uniformly white and the film has no interest in saying anything about it. This is a machine built for laughter, and it does not pause to instruct.

Where does that leave the ledger. Nearly empty. Nicole offers the faintest flicker of a spirited girl chafing against a traditional father, though the film treats her rebellion as a headache and not a cause, which is why that lone ember registers as a five and nothing more. Everything else sits at zero, and zero is the honest number. Not every vintage requires tasting notes. Some bottles are simply meant to be drunk in the sun, and this one was, by millions, without a single thought about inclusion, climate, or the redistribution of wealth. Sixty years on, the museum in Saint-Tropez celebrates it. The classification board shrugs and files it under harmless.