Delusions of Grandeur

In seventeenth-century Spain, Don Salluste de Bazan serves as the king's minister and tax collector, a greedy and hypocritical man who lines his own pockets at the expense of the people he bleeds dry. When he is accused of fathering an illegitimate child with one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, he loses his titles, his wealth and his place at court, and is ordered away to a monastery. Determined to take revenge on the queen rather than accept his disgrace, he turns to his quick-witted valet Blaze, planning to pass the servant off as a noble cousin named Don Cesar and have him court the queen. The scheme depends on Blaze playing his part convincingly, which he does rather too well, while the meddling duenna Dona Juana complicates matters further.

Gérard Oury directed and co-wrote the film with Danièle Thompson and Marcel Jullian, placing it fourth in the run of features he made between The Sucker in 1965 and Umbrella Coup in 1980. Louis de Funès plays the scheming Don Salluste opposite Yves Montand as Blaze, with Alice Sapritch, Karin Schubert, Alberto de Mendoza and Jaime de Mora y Aragón heading a credited cast of twenty-eight. The comedy runs 108 minutes and was a German, Spanish, Italian and French co-production.

Its standing is solid and durable rather than spectacular: on IMDb it holds 7.2 out of 10 across roughly 8,800 votes, and on TMDB 7.4 out of 10 from around 754 votes. The two scores sit close together, suggesting broad agreement among viewers.