Alain Cavalier's 1976 road trip comedy Fill 'er Up with Super begins at a car dealership when Klouk (Bernard Crombey) gets an assignment to drive a station wagon from Lille to a new owner in the Cote d'Azur.
His wife had been looking forward to a vacation, but he has no choice. "You’re pathetic!," she laments. For company, he ropes in Philippe (Xavier Saint-Macary), a nurse and aspiring singer. In Philippe's words, "We've got nothing to say but we get along." If it wasn't for Philippe's red sweater, it would be hard to tell the two mustachioed men apart.
They'll have a lot to say when they meet Charles (actor and composer Étienne Chicot), who seeks a ride to Paris after a failed attempt to blackmail his former boss and father-in-law. He's a havoc-inciting spark plug, but the men find him entertaining. They drop him off at his flat above a bistro where they share a meal with his freeloading friend, Daniel (Patrick Bouchitey).
If Klouk and Philippe are relatively settled in their lives, Charles and Daniel are unsettled in every way, though they're rarely as boorish as Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere in Bertrand Blier's 1974 Going Places, one possible inspiration behind the scenario. To a man, though, they all have female trouble. Klouk's wife would like to have kids, but he's "100% infertile," Philippe pines for an old girlfriend (Nathalie Baye in a brief cameo), Daniel is smarting from a fresh breakup, and Charles is estranged from his ex-wife, who has moved into a commune with their son and her new boyfriend.
The next thing Klouk knows, Charles and Daniel have joined the convoy for a trip to Aix-en-Provence to visit Charles's son. He grudgingly agrees, though the antics of the new passengers lead Klouk and Philippe to attempt to ditch them at a rest stop, they won't be denied. The men drive on, alternately laughing and bickering all the while.
During the trip, they have mishaps at a church, along a twisty mountain road, with a gang of egg-throwing kids, and at the commune where Charles' jealousy gets the best of him. He and Daniel add to the chaos by slipping Klouk a dose of hash, leading to an epic freak-out. "I'm going to die, guys!," he wails, before receiving an ill-timed car phone call from his boss.
For all the havoc, the men also open up to each other about faith and relationships, and an understanding develops. By the end, they've even come up with a possible solution to Klouk's infertility problem, proving that the most unlikely companions can make for the most creative problem-solvers.
Director Cavalier, a two-time César winner for 1987's Thérèse, cast the four actors, all students at the same drama school, based on their chemistry, and they wrote the script as a collective. Fans of Cassavetes' films about masculinity and its discontents will find a lot to love in this nicely acted, sensitively-directed look at male friendship.
What kind of film series would this narrative fit in?
Fill 'er Up with Super would fit in film series on French cinema, European road trip comedies (like Wim Wenders' Kings of the Road, also from 1976), or the filmography of director Alain Cavalier, who was active for over six decades.
What kind of film collection would this title be suitable for?
Fill 'er Up with Super would be suitable for French-language and comedy collections in academic and public libraries.
What type of library programming could use this title?
Library programming on road trip comedies and French cinema, particularly the 1970s variant, would find an enlightening and engaging example in Fill 'er Up With Super, now in an expertly-restored 2K edition.