Hopefully, a Region A Blu-ray (or at least a streaming option) will be made available in the U.S. It is a shame that it is so difficult for American audiences to see La Grande Vadrouille, because it is a top flight entertainment that ranks highly amongst epic comedies of its day. While Bourvil and Terry Thomas (in a rare non-cad role) are nothing short of excellent, De Funes really steals the spotlight with his jumpy, raw nerve performance.
De Funes really shines in La Grande Vadrouille. Whereas Louis de Funès was a star on the rise, who would soon surpass the more established comedian in popularity. Bourvil was well-known, popular, and beloved. In truth, the two leads were even mismatched in terms of the conditions of their careers. Audiences loved watching class conflicts play out on a small scale between the two characters, and were comforted that a friendship blossoms between them, despite their differences of status. It was a perfect Mutt and Jeff pairing of mismatched characters - one tall/the other short, one mild tempered/the other hyper-excitable, one a lower class laborer/the other a snobby authority figure. However, the main reason La Grande Vadrouille was such a hit with French audiences was the wonderful interplay between comedians Bourvil and Louis de Funès. This harmless bit of propaganda had to be a much needed boost for national pride. It is as if the entire nation was a part of the French Resistance. In the fairy tale France of La Grande Vadrouille, every French man and woman is eager to help the Allies avoid capture. The film also depicted a more rosy view of the years of the German occupation, whitewashing any stench of collaboration with the enemy. Unlike the cheaply made, studio-bound French comedies of the time, La Grande Vadrouille was a big budget affair that made beautiful use of Paris locations, as well as the French countryside.
It’s easy to see why La Grande Vadrouille was so popular in France. The lower class painter and the snobby conductor form a tenuous friendship as they are forced to work together to save the soldiers and their own skins. One of the British soldiers drops in (literally) on Augustin Bouvet (André Bourvil, billed simply as “Bourvil”), an easygoing, house painter while another finds help from Stanislas Lefort (Louis de Funès), the temperamental conductor of the Paris Opera. The soldiers are forced to rely on the help of French civilians to hide them out until they can rendezvous at the Turkish baths. The pilot (epic comedy regular Terry Thomas) and his crew parachute to safety, but they are separated in the decent. With the help of a region-free Blu-ray player, I have finally seen, and greatly enjoyed the full, unabridged version of this French classic.ĭuring World War II, a RAF bomber plane is shot down over German-occupied Paris. Thankfully, a 4K restoration was commissioned to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary, which was followed by a Studio Canal Blu-ray release throughout the world (except sadly in the U.S.).
The film never received a DVD or Blu-ray release in the U.S., and English-subtitled versions of the film were often edited to run under two hours.
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Still, in France and many parts of Europe, La Grande Vadrouille is a beloved comedy classic, still cherished by audiences who tuned in for traditional holiday TV broadcasts.Īs a fan and apologist of the bombastic, supersized comedies of the Sixties, I became highly interested in seeing La Grande Vadrouille (once I became aware of its existence), but finding a way to watch it was not easy. release, American audiences had moved on to counter-culture or boundary-pushing cinema, and La Grande Vadrouille was completely ignored and ultimately forgotten. release in 1969 under the uninspiring title of Don’t Look Now… We’re Being Shot At! By the time of that belated U.S. While La Grande Vadrouille (which translates as The Great Promenade) stood as the biggest earner in French box office history for 42 years, it received a paltry “blink and you’ll miss it” U.S.
What? You’ve never heard of La Grande Vadrouille? Well, I guess that’s not surprising. This trend birthed several bloated, 2 hour-plus “race” or “chase” comedies including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), The Great Race (1965), The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), and, of course, La Grande Vadrouille (1966). Based largely on the success of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), the all-star, epic comedy became a popular genre for a brief period in the 1960s.