It's the year 1964 and we're in London. A French supporter attending an international rugby match receives an accidental punch in the mouth, causing him to lose two front teeth. This is quite a problem, since he wasn't supposed to attend the match : his fiancee thinks he's safely back home in France, visiting a sick relative. When the supporter visits a dentist, he sets in motion a game of mistaken identities. Saving sex bomb Diana Dors from an unhinged male fan, is but the beginning of a series of adventures that will include aiding and abetting a bank robber, causing giant traffic jams and surprising a French Resistance fighter still hiding from the Nazis.
"Allez France" is an enormously funny and merry movie, inspired by the age-old rivalry (sporting or not) between England and France. The story is well-constructed and the various jokes, gags and one-liners fit neatly into the plot. Much of the humor derives from the witty use of clichés about England : the viewer gets pretty much everything that ever graced a "Greetings from London" postcard. Bobbies, smog, fire-engine-red telephone booths, Horse Guards, officers sporting ferocious moustaches, dairy vans laden with milk bottles, posh weddings with female guests in silly flowered hats, they're all there. Multiple cups of tea are drunk and God saves the Queen, 24/7.
The French, especially the French supporters, get the same "Let's hug a stereotype" treatment : they're touchy, tipsy, unruly, volatile and self-centered. Unsurprisingly, their mascot is a French cockerel adorned in red, white and blue. This fine animal, called "Popaul", is cherished, embraced and paraded with the same kind of unreasoning devotion Roman legions gave to their eagle. (Who knows - perhaps it's not yet too late to conquer perfidious Albion in Napoleon's name ?) Popaul's presence gives rise to a superb (but sadly untranslatable) pun : "Mon coq n'aime pas le poulet"...
The cast is excellent, gathering comic talent from both sides of the Channel. Watch out for Colette Brosset, whose Lady Brisburn is expensive anarchy made flesh.
"Allez France" is an enormously funny and merry movie, inspired by the age-old rivalry (sporting or not) between England and France. The story is well-constructed and the various jokes, gags and one-liners fit neatly into the plot. Much of the humor derives from the witty use of clichés about England : the viewer gets pretty much everything that ever graced a "Greetings from London" postcard. Bobbies, smog, fire-engine-red telephone booths, Horse Guards, officers sporting ferocious moustaches, dairy vans laden with milk bottles, posh weddings with female guests in silly flowered hats, they're all there. Multiple cups of tea are drunk and God saves the Queen, 24/7.
The French, especially the French supporters, get the same "Let's hug a stereotype" treatment : they're touchy, tipsy, unruly, volatile and self-centered. Unsurprisingly, their mascot is a French cockerel adorned in red, white and blue. This fine animal, called "Popaul", is cherished, embraced and paraded with the same kind of unreasoning devotion Roman legions gave to their eagle. (Who knows - perhaps it's not yet too late to conquer perfidious Albion in Napoleon's name ?) Popaul's presence gives rise to a superb (but sadly untranslatable) pun : "Mon coq n'aime pas le poulet"...
The cast is excellent, gathering comic talent from both sides of the Channel. Watch out for Colette Brosset, whose Lady Brisburn is expensive anarchy made flesh.