Perched on a Tree

Perched on a Tree (French title: Sur un arbre perché) is a 1971 French comedy film, directed by Serge Korber, written by Pierre Roustang, and starring Louis de Funès. Plot Henri Roubier (Louis de Funès), a highway industrialist, is returning from Italy when he picks up, against his will, a hitchhiker (Olivier de Funès) and a young lady (Geraldine Chaplin) whose engine broke down. Against his will, Roubier is forced by the hitchhiker to drop both of them off at Cassis. During the night, Roubier is exhausted by his two talkative passengers, and misses a right turn, and is precipitated in the void after the woman's dog landed on the accelerator. The next morning, the three of them wake up to find themselves on a tree, perched right on the side of a cliff, near the sea. Roubier seems to have a particularly hard time to calm the woman, who is completely taken by panic attack and whose absurdity leads her into trying to jump out of the car. She eventually calms herself over the course of the day while Roubier whimpers about his fate. At night time, Roubier turns on his portable television and succeeds into accessing the Daily Bulletin Programme, who exaggerates the disappearance of the rich industrialist, to the amusement of his two passengers. After the bulletin, a horror film is shown containing a plot regarding a vampire in which Roubier looks with fright and attention. Terrorised, he shuts the television and remembers the bulletin had also mentioned the disappearance of a "vampire camper". Roubier starts to wonder if the hitchhiker he had picked up was actually a vampire, and suffers from a magnified nightmare. After a rough night, the three passengers are able to get the attention of a boat with a mirror, but fails after the light the mirror reflected made the engine explode. Hours pass, and the moral of the passengers in the car continues to decline. At one point, the woman undresses her shirt with the intention of tanning, which gives Roubier the idea of taking out all of the clothes available in the car, and tying them together to form a rope, in which the passengers could descend, and attain safer grounds. After the three protagonists get rid of the unnecessary clothes worn, the rope is thrown into the void. Roubier is the first one to itch his way down, but unfortunately, a jeans in the rope starts to tear a part. He climbs up the rope quickly, and narrowly avoids death.