The Gendarme Takes Off (1970)
"Le gendarme en balade" (original title)

The whole clique of Cruchot's police station is retired. Now he lives with his rich wife in her castle - and is bored almost to death. He fights with the butler, because he isn't even ... See full summary »

Director:

Jean Girault

Writers:

Richard Balducci (characters), Jean Girault (story),

Stars:

Louis de Funès, Jean Lefebvre, Guy Grosso

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Louis de Funès	...	Maréchal des logis-chef Ludovic Cruchot
Jean Lefebvre	...	Maréchal des Logis Lucien Fougasse
Guy Grosso	...	Maréchal des Logis Tricard
Michel Modo	...	Maréchal des Logis Berlicot
Nicole Vervil	...	Mme Gerber
France Rumilly	...	La mère supérieure
Yves Vincent	...	Le colonel de gendarmerie examinateur
Christian Marin	...	Maréchal des Logis Albert Merlot
Claude Gensac	...	Josépha Cruchot
Michel Galabru	...	Adjudant Jérôme Gerber
Sara Franchetti	...	Soeur Marie-Bénédicte (as Sarah Franchetti)
Ugo Fangareggi	...	Un hippie
Christor Georgiadis	...	(as Chris Georgiadis)
Christine Reynolds
René Berthier	...	Berthier, l'adjoint du colonel

Storyline

The whole clique of Cruchot's police station is retired. Now he lives with his rich wife in her castle - and is bored almost to death. He fights with the butler, because he isn't even allowed to do the simple works. But when one of the clique suffers from amnesia after an accident, all of the others reunite and kidnap him, to take him on a tour to their old working places and through their memories. In their old uniforms they turn St. Tropez upside down.

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Plot Keywords:

police | hippies | prank | nun | male frontal nudity | 

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

Italy France

Language:

French

Release Date:

28 October 1970 (France)

Also Known As:

The Gendarme Takes Off

Filming Locations:

Saint-Tropez, Var, France

Box Office

Gross:

SEK 831,043 (Sweden)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC), Mega Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

107 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

70mm blow-up version released in Spain.

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Connections

Follows The Gendarme Gets Married (1968)

User Reviews

Wildly uneven!

This is an extremely uneven entry from the Gendarmes series, featuring Michel Galabru at a definitive peak (for the series) but De Funès alternating between brilliance and actual boredom (like what his character goes through at first in the film). Maybe this weariness my wife and I detected in his performance here was a foreboding of some of his health issues which will, a few years later, make him stop shooting physical comedy altogether, and will finally take his life so prematurely.

His faithful partner Claude Gensac wrote in her autobiography that De Funès' humour was a logical one. His characters were behaving logically even in their over-the-top reactions. But here when he goes nuts over being pampered and looked after all the time by his rich wife's staff, he insists upon dirtying the car on purpose in order to have a chance to wash it by himself and thus splashes paint all over it… only to empty in the process another bucket of paint on top of his own head… You would never have seen a gag like this in a classic Gendarmes such as "Le gendarme de St. Tropez" or "Le gendarme se marie", because it does not make sense! That the priest enters into a grimace contest with De Funès in plain view before his wife – however funny some of those face exchanges can be – doesn't make any sense either and is gratuitous! There is also mediocre acting on the part, for instance, of the butler, which doesn't help some of those poorly written, ill-warranted or directed scenes…

But when the Gendarmes don their uniforms under the orders of the hilariously perfect (i.e. constantly serious, grave and solemn) adjutant Gerber, we are OK gain, and the situations can get really funny, like the talking whistle bit which another reviewer has described so well!