Strictly Kosher

By JAY COCKS

THE MAD ADVENTURES OF "RABBI" JACOB

Directed by GERARD OURY Screenplay by GERARD OURY and DANIELLE THOMPSON

In a burst of rabid optimism common to their species, the Stateside distributors of this perishable French farce report that the movie contains "1,500 separate gags." How did such a statistic turn up? Did 20th Century-Fox survey theaters in France, where The Mad Adventures of "Rabbi" Jacob has been doing the kind of business that virtually subsidizes an entire industry? Maybe the director supplied the eager exhibitors with a laugh count made on the metric system and an error was made in the conversion. Maybe something was lost in the translation.

In order to accept for a moment--in the name of good sportsmanship and the brotherhood of nations--that there are 1,500 gags in this movie, then it must be added that approximately 1,498 are not funny. No one ever said that gags have to be funny, of course. It helps if they are, but that may be asking too much. Certainly it is of the people involved with this movie.

In all the counting, no one seems to have noticed the stubborn absence of humor or the manic mugging by the star, Louis de Funes, whose exertions make Jerry Lewis look, by comparison, like Alfred Lunt. De Funes likes to pop his eyes out, fast and wide, like two billiard balls bouncing off the side cushion. He is ever choleric, his veins on the point of rupture, like a man who has been mud-splattered by the bus he just missed.

Oh yes, the plot. De Funes appears as a racist bourgeois, a prideful Catholic preparing for his daughter's wedding. His chauffeur, who is Jewish, has relatives arriving from New York. There is a car accident, but the chauffeur refuses to help, since it is after sun down Friday--the start of the Sabbath, when Orthodox Jews do not work--so De Funes must extricate himself all on his own. Meanwhile, near the crash scene a gang of Middle Eastern terrorists chases after one of their political leaders, trying to torture information about the underground out of him. De Funes stumbles on their hideout, hooks up with the leader, is chased by the terrorists, shows up at the airport, switches identities with a couple of Orthodox rabbis--his chauffeur's relatives--is transported to an enormous welcoming celebration, is asked to preside over a bar mitzvah, all the while being chased by the terrorists because he is still in the company of the political leader, also disguised as a rabbi. De Funes cannot, of course, get out to his daughter's wedding, so his wife is furious, his daughter weeping . . .

Enough already.

qed Jay Cocks

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