The Umbrella Coup

In this 1980 French comedy, Pierre Richard plays Grégoire Lecomte, a penniless, womanizing actor whose career consists mostly of small advertising jobs. Grégoire shows up for an appointment to win the role of a hitman in a comedy film, but through a misunderstanding he is instead hired by real mobsters as a contract killer, all the while believing the 'contract' he signed is simply his part in the movie. He is sent to Saint-Tropez, where during a party he is supposed to eliminate an arms trafficker using an umbrella whose tip conceals cyanide. What Grégoire does not know is that Moskovitz, the genuine hitman, is hot on his trail. Directed by Gérard Oury, the film marks his second collaboration with Pierre Richard after La Carapate. Its creation was inspired by the assassinations of Bulgarian dissidents carried out with the weapon known as the Bulgarian umbrella, and shooting took place at the Épinay Studios and on location around Paris.