The Gendarme and the Extra-Terrestrials (Le Gendarme et les Extra-terrestres)

Jean Girault directed the 1979 French science-fiction comedy The Gendarme and the Extra-Terrestrials (Le Gendarme et les Extraterrestres, Turkish title Süper Jandarma). It is the fifth of six films about the gendarmes of Saint-Tropez and brings Louis de Funès back as Ludovic Cruchot nine years after Le Gendarme en balade (1970). With 6.2 million admissions in France it was the country's biggest hit of 1979.

The story pits Cruchot and the Saint-Tropez brigade against aliens who have come to study the Earth. They can take human form but are mechanical inside; the chaotic gendarmes have to stop their invasion. The brigade features Michel Galabru, Guy Grosso and Michel Modo, who have been in the series since the first film, along with newcomers Maurice Risch and Jean-Pierre Rambal. Maria Mauban plays Cruchot's wife Josépha in place of the unavailable Claude Gensac.

The film was the series' first venture into science fiction, a genre rare in French cinema, and it was shaped by the late-1970s science-fiction revival. Critics were harsh, yet it was a commercial triumph: 5.12 million tickets were sold in Germany, a French record there for over thirty years. The next and final film in the series is Le Gendarme et les Gendarmettes.