Heureux Anniversaire is a 1962 French short comedy film directed by Pierre Étaix. While his wife impatiently waits and gets drunk, a husband tries to get the appropriate anniversary gifts and fight his way home through traffic in time for their celebratory lunch. It won an Oscar in 1963 for Best Short Subject.
The story follows the son of a millionaire from the 1920s to the 1960s. After losing his fortune in the stock-exchange crash, he teams up with an equestrienne and becomes a circus clown.
Marcel, a simple-minded factory worker, is tricked into buying a high-priced American convertable car by a widow determined not to let it fall into the hands of her late husband's secretary/secret lover. Once in pocession of the car, Marcel only encounters one bad luck episode after another with the excessive gasoline consumtion, his wife trying to sell it to make ammends meet, getting into traffic jams, accidently riding into a car wash with the top down, and more.
