| La Chèvre | |
| Director: | Francis Veber |
| Producer: | Alain Poiré |
| Starring: | Pierre Richard Gérard Depardieu |
| Music: | Vladimir Cosma |
| Runtime: | 95 minutes |
| Country: | France Mexico |
| Language: | French Spanish |
| Gross: | $ 56.6 million |
La Chèvre (English title: Knock on Wood, literal translation: The She-goat) is a 1981 French buddy cop comedy film written and directed by Francis Veber, starring Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu. It is the first of three films featuring Richard and Depardieu as a comic duo.
An American remake of this film was made in 1991, starring Martin Short and Danny Glover, entitled Pure Luck.
La Chèvre features Depardieu as tough-guy private detective Campana, hired to find Marie, the daughter of a rich businessman, who has mysteriously disappeared while vacationing in Mexico. The case turns out to be complicated – several attempts to find her have already failed. A psychologist, Meyer, who works for the businessman, suggests a plan: Marie is known to be extremely unlucky and accident-prone; therefore, the psychologist advises sending someone equally unlucky and accident-prone to find her on the theory that what happened to her may also happen to him, and thus, following her steps while the detective tags along, the daughter can be found and returned home. Richard's character Perrin is an awkward, accident-prone accountant who works for the businessman, and is chosen to implement the scheme while being made to believe that HE is actually in charge of the investigation. While Campana does not believe in luck and is extremely skeptical about the plan's success, he goes along with it. The adventures of the serious detective and unlucky guy begin, with, amazingly, each misfortune Perrin suffers along the way bringing the duo one step closer each time to finding their quarry...
| International publication date | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Title | Date | |
| La Chèvre | 9 December 1981 | ||
| Den ville jakten | 9 March 1982 | ||
| Der Hornochse und sein Zugpferd Ein Tolpatsch kommt selten allein (TV title) | 19 March 1982 | ||
| Twee pechvogels in de rimboe | 15 July 1982 | ||
| Que o Diabo Seja Surdo | 15 July 1982 | ||
| Mas locos que una cabra | 1 December 1982 | ||
| La cabra | 20 December 1982 (Madrid) | ||
| La capra | 13 February 1983 | ||
| Mala pata | 16 June 1983 | ||
| Невезучие | 2 December 1983 1997 (video release) | ||
| Balfácán | 14 June 1984 | ||
| The Goat Knock on Wood | 26 July 1985 | ||
| Geden | 26 July 1987 (French Film Week) | ||
French | La Chèvre Pas de chance (alternative French title) | 4 March 2003 (DVD premiere) | |
| La Chèvre | 27 June 2019 (Brussels International Film Festival) | ||
The movie is infamous in Italy for the Cinema Statuto fire in Turin in which it was projected, killing 64 people.
The film received favorable reviews, with praise for Richard and Depardieu's performances, story and humour.The film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1985 by the U.S. National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.[1]