Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969)

An international car rally across Europe is complicated by smuggling, cheating, love at first sight, etc. etc.

Directors:

Ken Annakin, Sam Itzkovitch

Writers:

Jack Davies (original story and screenplay), Ken Annakin (original story and screenplay)

Stars:

Bourvil, Lando Buzzanca, Walter Chiari

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bourvil	...	Monsieur Dupont
Lando Buzzanca	...	Marcello
Walter Chiari	...	Angelo
Peter Cook	...	Maj. Dawlish
Tony Curtis	...	Chester Schofield
Mireille Darc	...	Marie-Claude
Marie Dubois	...	Pascale
Gert Fröbe	...	Willi Schickel / Horst Müller (as Gert Frobe)
Susan Hampshire	...	Betty
Jack Hawkins	...	Count Levinovitch
Nicoletta Machiavelli	...	Dominique
Dudley Moore	...	Lt. Barrington
Peer Schmidt	...	Otto
Eric Sykes	...	Perkins
Terry-Thomas	...	Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage

Storyline

In an international car rally, competitors must travel from various points in Europe to Monte Carlo, then race their cars. Things are complicated by smuggling, cheating, honor, inventions, medicine, and love at first sight...

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Plot Keywords:

smuggling | cheating | race | monte carlo | road movie | 

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Taglines:

Hilarity Shifts Into High Gear

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Romance

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

UK France Italy

Language:

English

Release Date:

June 1969 (UK)

Also Known As:

Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies

Filming Locations:

Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Arthur Conn, Basil Keys Productions, Champion

Technical Specs

Runtime:

125 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Theme song was sung by Jimmy Durante.

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Goofs

(at around 9 mins) When they pull in front of "Armitage Motors" the chimneys and cooling towers of a coal-fired power plant can be seen in the background. While this type of cooling tower is incorrectly thought to be used only on nuclear plants, they were actually first used in the UK on a coal-fired plant in 1924.

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Crazy Credits

Closing sequence: Revolving Automobile Tire segues into the Paramount Logo.

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Connections

Follows Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes (1965)

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Soundtracks

Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies
Music and Lyrics by Ron Goodwin
Sung by Jimmy Durante

User Reviews

Monte Carlo Or Bust

If Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunting Jalopies seems real familiar it looks many times like outtakes from The Great Race were used to make this film. In fact the folks at Paramount had the presence of mind to star Tony Curtis as well.

Probably Jaunting Jalopies would have been better received if The Great Race hadn't preceded it by a few years. Curtis is not the pulp fiction hero he was in The Great Race. Rather he's an American who won a half interest in Terry-Thomas's automobile company and was busy putting his own stamp on it. Terry-Thomas heartily disapproves and he's the Jack Lemmon of this film. His sidekick is that Monty Python regular Eric Sykes whom he has a little something to which he can blackmail Sykes into doing his dirty work. But that's not his only ace in the hole, Terry-Thomas has Susan Hampshire a cousin of his sent out to provide feminine distraction for Curtis. She succeeds admirably, but nature does take its course between Curtis and Hampshire.

Stealing every scene they are in are Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as a British army colonel and his batman orderly. Cook invents a series of Rube Goldberg like contraptions that are supposed aid in the race. Somehow they don't work out and usually at Moore's expense. Perhaps Cook should have studied under Rube.

Some nice cinematography of the French countryside is a definite asset for Jaunting Jalopies. Still it all looks like it's been done before and it was by Tony Curtis.