The Daydreamer

Pierre Malaquet is a creative, zany and incredibly scatterbrained young man, not of this world, always getting into comic situations. He is hired to a big advertising agency “Jerico” on his mother’s recommendation. Full of bizarre advertising ideas, he meddles in other people’s business and tries to remake everything in his own manner. His commercials resemble horror films; themes of death and violence seem to amuse him, black humor is present in all of his works. He is convinced that “shocking” ads are the most effective. His actions annoy his coworkers, but to their great surprise, the strict boss Mr. Guiton forgives him for all his tricks – all because he is secretly involved with Malaquet’s mother Glycia.

At the office Pierre makes friends with Lisa Gastier, Guiton’s young and charming secretary. She turns out to be a daughter of one of the most important clients of the agency. Pierre is sent to bring an important contract to his office for signing. As usual, Pierre confuses everything and instead of going to the office he goes to Gastier’s house, where there is a party in a full swing. There he becomes a center of attention because of his odd behavior. A younger daughter of Gastier, Veronique, intends to “give him a little lesson”, but finds herself in an awkward situation as a result. Mr. Gastier, who waited in vain for Pierre in his office, returns home and when he finds Pierre there, becomes furious and throws him out of the house.

The young wife of Mr. Guiton, Clarisse, tries to seduce Pierre in a greenhouse, but it results in another amusing incident – when Pierre is undressing Clarisse, her long hair gets stuck in her zipper, and to her horror, he cuts off her hair with pruning scissors.

Guiton allocates him in a small office on a ground floor, full of cages with parrots and without proper furniture, in an effort to hold him away from agency business and to spite him. But even here Pierre finds amusement for himself. Soon he gets the first client – a manufacturer of toothpaste “Klerdene”, eccentric and even more absent-minded than Pierre himself. While strolling with Lisa he gets an idea of street advertising of the toothpaste. The scenario is the following: a beautiful blonde walks down the street and all of a sudden faints. She gets surrounded by passers-by who start arguing about how to help her. A handsome young man appears and gives her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She comes to her senses right away and asks rapturously: “Klerdene?” to which he responds affirmatively, and she says that “it is impossible to forget”. Then the advertising slogan is pronounced. Eventually this campaign results in a fight between people for the right to give the woman mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and in a media scandal. —Wikipedia