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MovieMail's Review
Terry-Thomas tries to lead his airmen back to Blighty in this classic French WWII comedy. David Parkinson relishes its verbal wit and physical schtick.
For over three decades, Gérard Oury's Second World War romp, in which a British bomber crew bale out over occupied Paris and struggle to find their way home, was the most commercially successful film in French cinema history. Indeed, until Dany Boon's Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis topped James Cameron's Titanic last year by selling over 20 million tickets, it was the country's biggest homegrown hit. Released in the UK as Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At, it failed to find much of an audience. Yet anyone familiar with the occupation sitcom `Allo `Allo will recognise the plotline about some stranded British airmen and will relish the expert blend of verbal wit, physical schtick and immaculate comic timing that is only found in the best French farces.
Considering he was a Jewish refugee who spent the war years in Switzerland, Oury has a sure feel for the look and mood of the period and he's immeasurably assisted by cinematographer Claude Renoir and production designer Jean André. Indeed, this is very much an ensemble piece, if not a family affair, as Oury was aided on the script by daughter Danièle Thompson, while one of the RAF heroes was played by Mike Marshall, who was his stepson with actress-wife Michèle Morgan.
But while Oury was a comic craftsman, who made his films as meticulously as any big name from the Tradition of Quality or the nouvelle vague, he was also a generous director, who allowed his players to take the plaudits. Having teamed the previous year in Oury's Le Corniaud (1965), Bourvil and Louis de Funès make the perfect foils as the genial Parisian painter and the pompous Opéra conductor who discover unsuspected reserves of courage to keep pilot Terry-Thomas and his crew out of the clutches of Nazi major Benno Sterzenbach.
Shifting effortlessly between throwaway quips, pantomimic pratfalls and spectacular set-pieces, this is as much a rousing adventure as a slapstick burlesque. Bourvil even finds time to romance plucky Marie Dubois. But his everyman geniality is upstaged by De Funès's exceptional sense of the ridiculous, which led to him being voted France's favourite actor in 1968.
Comedy - for forty years the most successful French film in France of all time - about how the crew of an Allied B-17 Flying Fortress shot down over Paris make their way through German-occupied France with the help of two French citizens - a house painter and the grumbling conductor of the Opéra National de Paris. Terry-Thomas stars alongside a host of familiar French faces.
In its day a phenomenally successful French comedy, Oury's La Grande Vadrouille follows three English airmen, including Sir Reginald (Terry-Thomas) who parachute into ... more >
In its day a phenomenally successful French comedy, Oury's La Grande Vadrouille follows three English airmen, including Sir Reginald (Terry-Thomas) who parachute into Occupied France when the Germans strafe their aircraft. One lands on the scaffold of easy-going painter Augustin (Bourvil). Another lands on top of l'Opéra and is rescued by the short-tempered conductor Lefort (Louis De Funès). When the French duo try and help the airmen make a rendezvous, Augustin and Stanislas find themselves a target for the Germans. A bizarre mix of comedy and excitement, the film now plays like The Great Escape crossed with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. < less
