The Gendarme and the Creatures from Outer Space

The gendarmes of Saint-Tropez face their strangest assignment yet. A colleague reports seeing a flying saucer and is dismissed as delusional, until Ludovic Cruchot witnesses one himself. Soon visitors from another world arrive in the seaside town, able to copy the appearance of the people they meet. The strangers need mineral oil to survive, and anyone whose stomach gives off the hollow ring of an empty can when tapped is not what they seem. With the gendarmes confronted by doubles of themselves, Cruchot sets out to expose the impostors while the world's press descends on the town.

Jean Girault directed this comedy, the ninth of the thirteen films he made in chronological order, between Jo and The Miser. Louis de Funès, who co-wrote the screenplay with Girault and producer Gérard Beytout, plays Cruchot, the role he had carried through the earlier gendarme films, with Michel Galabru as Gerber, Maurice Risch as Beaupied, Jean-Pierre Rambal, Guy Grosso and Michel Modo among a credited cast of thirty-six. It runs 96 minutes.

Released in early 1979 and produced in France by SNC, the film pairs slapstick service comedy with science fiction, putting the long-running gendarmerie series in contact with visitors its officers cannot simply arrest. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.1 out of 10 from 687 votes, indicating a modest but persistent following.