Robert Benayoun’s reverence for the uncrowned king of slapstick and unfettered silliness has maybe something to do with his own affinity to surrealism, which he joined in the forties and encouraged him to deal with the great masters of the absurd comedy like the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton. In six episodes Benayoun, who worked for many years as a film critic in Paris, immerses himself in the various aspects of the personality and comedian. He was allowed to use the inexhaustible supply of unused or private films, since Lewis was known for not throwing away one inch of celluloid and hoarding it in his basement. In addition to the interviews, in which renowned colleagues of Mel Brooks from Scorsese to John Landis and Lewis himself speak, there are especially these rare and sometimes startling images, that give a new sharper view on Lewis as a filmmaker and as a person.
The neglected daughter of an industrialist who made his fortune in explosives supplies during the war and of a mother who was mostly concerned with herself, Monique Lerbier is a pretty blonde with generous but strong ideas and a hard character. She has chosen to be an atheist since her adolescence and does not tolerate injustice and social hypocrisy. She was to be married to an engineer, Lucien Vigneret. It was an arranged marriage, the dowry having to allow Vigneret to enter the capital of his father's company, which needed it to finance its business. But two weeks before the wedding, Monique surprises the fiancé with a mistress.