La Grande Vadrouille

On a summer day in 1942 a damaged RAF bomber strays over Paris and is shot down by German flak. After planning to reconvene in the Turkish baths at the Grand Mosque of Paris, three crew members parachute out safely. Sir Reginald lands in Vincennes Zoo and, given civilian clothes by a friendly zoo keeper, heads for the baths. Peter Cunningham lands on the platform of a house painter, Augustin, from where he is clothed and hidden by a puppet show operator, Juliette, while Augustin goes to the baths on his behalf. Alan MacIntosh lands on the Opéra Garnier, where he is reluctantly clothed and hidden by the chief conductor, Stanislas, who goes to the baths for him.

All this time, the German military under Major Achbach furiously pursue the three and their helpers. By nightfall the Resistance has arranged for the aviators, together with Augustin and Stanislas who are now wanted men, to be conducted by Juliette to a safe hotel at Meursault, from where they can cross the line of demarcation to the free zone, or "Vichy France". After numerous misadventures the fugitives are rescued from German-occupied territory by a Resistance nun with a horse-drawn wagon. Pursued by half-track armoured vehicles and a spotter plane, she whisks them to a shuttered gliding club, where all six launch two gliders and through machine-gun fire fly to safety.

• André Bourvil as Augustin Bouvet
• Louis de Funès as Stanislas Lefort
• Terry-Thomas as Sir Reginald ("Big Moustache")
• Claudio Brook as Peter Cunningham
• Mike Marshall as Alan MacIntosh
• Marie Dubois as Juliette
• Pierre Bertin as Juliette's grandfather
• Andréa Parisy as Sister Marie-Odile
• Mary Marquet as The Mother Superior
• Benno Sterzenbach as Major Achbach
• Colette Brosset as Madame Germaine, hotel manager
• Guy Grosso as a musician
• Jean Droze as a musician
• Paul Préboist as a fisherman

The film was made by the same team (Oury, Bourvil and de Funès) who did the enormously successful The Sucker (1965).[4] It was shot at the Billancourt Studios in Paris with extensive location shooting around France. The film's sets were designed by the art director Jean André.

The film was the most popular of 1966 at the French box office (and the most popular and highest-grossing of all-time) with admissions of 17,275,169 and a gross of $32,994,000.[1] (This was almost twice as much as the second most popular, Dr Zhivago, which had 9,816,305 admissions and a gross of $16,536,000.)[5][1]

The film features in the 2018 film Roma.

A specific scene in the film where several dozen German officers of many branches hop around in circles around tables while holding chairs underneath them has become a lesser-known meme, paired with Yeah Yeah Yeahs' song "Heads Will Roll".[6]

• Le Corniaud

• La Grande Vadrouille at IMDb