as Youg as You Feel

Sixty-five-year-old John Hodges must retire from Acme Printing. He later impersonates the president of the parent company and arrives at his old plant on an inspection tour. Acme president McKinley is so nervous not even his beautiful secretary Harriet can calm him. McKinley's wife Lucille becomes infatuated with Hodges. Many further complications ensue.

The director's cut (restored version) opens and closes with theatrical curtains in homage to Georges Méliés films, and is divided into four parts, separated by title cards: I - L'insomnie [a man can't sleep, and reads about vampires until sunrise, when his wife finally wakes up and reveals her true nature]; II - Le cinématographe [unlike 1895, employees leaving the factory, or the office, are a much eventful thing, and finding a sit in a crowded cinema is quite a task]; III - Tant qu'on a la santé [in modern times, everyone suffers of stress, and the psychiatrist most of all other people]; IV - Nous n'irons plus au bois [a week-end hunter, a couple out for a pic-nic, and a farmer setting a wire fence find that a large wood is not large enough to accommodate them all].

This anthology film from Étaix’s peak period presents four comic episodes with an accent on the pitfalls of modern life: (1) a scary vampire novel keeps a man awake, (2) a moviegoer’s attempts to find a seat give way to an onslaught of absurd ads, (3) noise and pollution send a man to the doctor’s, (4) a hunter disrupts a rural idyll.