Pierre Étaix, a French director of seamlessly choreographed slapstick films, including “Happy Anniversary,” which won an Oscar for best live-action short subject in 1963, died on Friday in Paris. He was 87.

The cause was complications of an intestinal infection, his wife, Odile, told Agence France-Presse.

Mr. Étaix (pronounced ay-TEX), an actor as well as a director, specialized in a deadpan visual comedy, animated by sight gags, funny sound effects and fantasy sequences that harked back to the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Max Linder as well as his own background as a circus performer.

He was an assistant to Jacques Tati on the 1958 film “Mon Oncle,” providing gags, designing sets and illustrating the poster, before striking out on his own in 1961 with “La Rupture” (“The Break-up”).

With a screenplay by Jean-Claude Carrière, who would later write “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and other films for Luis Buñuel, it told the story of a boyfriend who tries to answer a rejection letter with one of his own but finds himself in an unequal battle with his pen, his inkwell and his desk.