La Grande Vadrouille (1966)

One of my favorite movies of all time. Being half french/American I guess I am lucky enough to get the best of both worlds culturally. And this one, just like other great movies of de Funes and Bourvil, makes you smile when the movie ends. I have both such a happy and great feeling after the movie and yet part of me is sad because France lost two of its greatest actors a few decades ago and we miss them both a lot. For those who really want to see how the French think (without the typical generalizations I hear from everyone) about the British (all in humor), the Germans (the french i think will always remember WWII in the back of their minds and part of the population still is not fond of Germans) or just life in general, it's a must see. Tea for two and two for tea. Me and you and you and me. Just love it. Vive la France!

Fmovies: In France, but also in the neighboring countries like Belgium (where yours truly lives), "La Grande Vadrouille" is more than just a cinematic classic… It's a cultural monument and even national heritage! I certainly don't intend to sound pretentious, but I doubt if such a movie could ever exist in the United States. Why? Because this film is patriotic and satirical at the same time, the script is chock-full of clichés and stereotypes whilst the humor doesn't necessarily rely on clichés and stereotypes, and although the subject matter deals with the depressing events of World War II – forever one of the darkest pages in the world's history – the tone of the film remains courteous and innocent at all times. The Nazis in this film are naturally the bad guys but for once they aren't depicted as inhuman monsters, which is probably the main reason why "La Grande Vadrouille" is also enormously successful in Germany! And last but not least, the script respects the language differences per country! The French simply speak French - or English with extremely heavy accents – while the English speak English and the Germans speak German! I don't see that happening in Hollywood, to be honest.

The film received the funny but rather hokey sounding English title "Don't Look Now, We're being shot at", but actually "La Grande Vadrouille" simply means something like "The Big Stroll" or "The Giant Walk". As you can derive from the above paragraph, the film takes place in during the WWII Nazi occupation of France. The story already starts out hilariously, when the pilot of a British bomber plane asks his fellow passengers what their location is. They claim the plain is more or less above Calais, but when the clouds clear up they are surprised to see the Eiffel Tower directly beneath them. The plane is shot down by German ground troops and each of the three British soldiers wanders off towards a different part of Paris with their parachutes. The British pilots receive help from two typical yet entirely opposite French citizens, namely the simple but hard- working painter Augustin Bouvet and the snobbish orchestra leader Stanislas Lefort. Both men, along with the help of various other French citizens, take several risks in order to reunite the British team, which of course makes them enemies of the Third Reich as well. The whole group has to flee towards the South of France, but naturally the journey is full of obstacles and dangers. Many, and I do mean MANY, sequences in "La Grande Vadrouille" have become immortal cinematic highlights over the years and it's almost impossible to list them. The mix-up with the room numbers in the hotel, for example, is very famous and still as incredibly funny by today's standards as it must have been back in 1966. Other unforgettable highlights include the rendezvous in the Turkish bath house and the pumpkin counterattack. In fact, every single interaction between the legendary French actors/comedians Bourvil and Louis de Funès qualifies as classic comedy cinema. Both geniuses where at the absolute heights of their careers at this point, but Bourvil sadly passed away far too young a couple of years later, at age 53. Louis de Funès continued to make several more French comedy classics until his death in the early 1980s, including the sequels in the successful "Les Gendarmes de Saint-Tropez" franchise, "Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob" and "La Soupe aux Choux". De Funès

I saw this great movie everytime I was ill and couldn't go to school, when I was a kid. I've seen it for at least 20 times, and it still make me laugh. I often have the soundtrack for the movie in my head. I love this film, and it is still one of my favourite films!!

La Grande Vadrouille fmovies. This movie certainly belongs to one of the best comedies French cinema has ever produced.It has that rare quality of entertaining the viewer over and over again although it has been around for years. It is also probably Louis de Funès' most witty performance ever, mainly due to the fact that he reduced his frequently exaggerated ( and often irritating) facial expressions and babbling away to an acceptable level.Bourvil was always and remains, even today, an icon of the French cinema.As a team, de Funès and Bourvil form an "odd couple" that really works and their constant bickering is often hilarious. A lot of fun is made of the Germans and British but this is always done with a tongue-in-cheek approach and the whole movie bristles with a "joie de vivre" that leaves the viewer with a feeling of intense delight.

Released in Australia as DON'T LOOK NOW...WE'RE BEING SHOT AT this dubbed French WW2 farce was a runaway hit and most unexpectedly so during winter 1968. Usually French films just are subtitled here but, like Das Boot later, it is one of the few expertly dubbed...maybe there was an English version made given some of the cast. Anyway, it was plonked into one city theater as a filler when some other film fell over...and became a record breaking ticket seller for about 3 months. I can remember (it well) the audience screaming with laughter in the huge 1200 seat Lyceum Theatre...especially during one particular chase scene. The Lyceum was the showcase for most family films like THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE and later WHATS UP DOC so maybe there was an inbuilt audience for Lyceum style shows that helped this film find box office gold immediately. However, after its initial run, it never surfaced again and has never been seen on TV video or DVD in Australia. Just one colossal release and oblivion!

I have seen this film (dubbed into Russian) back in USSR (before 1989). In soviet Union, dubbing of foreign films was an art form of the highest professional level. It is a great comedy in the ranks of "It's a mad, mad, mad world"(USA) and "Brilliantovaya ruka"(Diamond Arm) (USSR). Bourvil, Louis de Funes and Terry Thomas are the three pillars of European comedy cinema of the 1960's. Here, I finally found out the tile in English and French, because translating from Russian "The Great Promenade" only garnered me blank stares. It's a great example of how a free people love to make fun of their conquerors. Unfortunately war is not often as much fun as this film.