User Reviews

An extremely funny film about a group of French rugby supporters who go to see a match at Twickenham and one of them inadvertently receives a blow in the mouth from someone else's elbow. In the process he loses some front teeth and needs to see a dentist urgently ... this is only the beginning of a long series of adventures befalling our poor friend ( played by Robert Dhery ) who doesn't speak a word of English and who nevertheless needs to return urgently to France to get married in the following days sporting a decent mouth !

The film sports an unlikely mixture of both French and English comedians of the time, names which one would never imagine seeing together on the same billboards .... for example Pierre Tornade and Arthur Mullard, or Robert Dhery and Diana Dors ! The film brings to mind the atmosphere of "No sex please, We"re British" but of course the story is completely different.

The film has just been issued in France ( May 2007 ) on DVD. The main language is in French and there are purportedly French subtitles though none from any other language. A bit of a pity because I think the film deserves to be known internationally. This sort of hybrid comedy would today be inimaginable and dates from an era when there was little or no animosity between England and France, hence it's success and good humour.

Highly recommendable for its entertainment value and plot plus its interesting mixture of comedians from both countries !

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.