La Grande Vadrouille

1966 • 132 minutes

About this movie

To mark the 50th anniversary, La Grande Vadrouille has been stunningly restored. The film is considered one of the greatest comic achievements of French cinema and one of the most popular films ever shown in France. During World War II, when their combat aircraft is shot down by the Germans, three English airmen (including Terry-Thomas as Sir Reginald) parachute to the comparative safety of Nazi occupied France. One lands on the scaffold of an amiable painter and decorator, Augustin (Bourvil). Another lands on top of a concert hall and is rescued by the irascible but patriotic conductor Stanislas Lefort (Louis de Funès). The third ends up in the otter enclosure of a Parisian zoo. When they try to help the airmen keep a rendez-vous at the Turkish baths in Paris, Augustin and Stanislas quickly find that they themselves have become targets for the German soldiers. Assisted by the daughter of a puppeteer and an anti-German nun, the two reluctant heroes accompany the three airmen on a reckless trek across France towards the safety of the neutral zone.