LES VACANCES DE MONSIEUR HULOT (1953) ** Jacques Tati bows incessantly, invents a clever new service motion, and listens to loud jazz at the beach. There's even less plot to it than most holidays, but the landscape is, as always, peppered (or is that littered?) with characters. It's not as funny as what it inspired-which would include Jerry Lewis and Mr. Bean-but it's better than passable. Probably of more interest to cinematic historians than comedic belly-laugh enthusiasts, but the snickers and smirks are regular and earned. At the time it was even considered to have anarchic qualities. The tennis routine is probably my favorite, even though he begins a set by serving to the ad court, and they're apparently allowing his serves so long as they fall inside the baseline. Not that they were shooting for cinematic or athletic realism, anyway, which blanket explanation should also forgive the funereal bits. So, if you're teaching a comedy in film course, don't forget to put Tati somewhere between Chaplin and Lewis, but if you're looking to laugh until you're crying so hard that you can't see, might I direct you to something from our Monty Python collection.
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