The stupid pranks of the rich

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Movie
German title The stupid pranks of the rich
Original title La folie des grandeurs
Country of production France , Germany , Spain , Italy
original language French
Publishing year 1971
length 108 minutes
Rod
Director Gérard Oury
script Gérard Oury
Danièle Thompson
Marcel Jullian
production Alain Poiré
music Michel Polnareff
camera Henri Decaë
Alain Douarinou
Franck Delahaye
cut Albert Jurgenson
occupation

The stupid pranks of the rich (French. La folie des grandeurs , in Germany also under the title Don Louis, the megalomaniac or in the DVD version of 2009 as Don Louis ) is a 1971 coproduction by France , Italy , Spain and film comedy shot by the Federal Republic of Germany . Directed by Gérard Oury ; Louis de Funès played the leading role alongside Yves Montand . After its release, the film was one of the most successful films of the year and is considered by fans to be one of the best Funès films ever. Among German cineastes, the film is considered a lost rarity that is rarely shown.

action

The film is set in Spain in the 17th century. Don Salluste, a grandee of Spain, is the greedy and hard-hearted finance minister and tax collector of Charles II , the Spanish king. But when he stumbles over an intrigue in the form of an alleged illegitimate child with a lady-in-waiting, Queen Dona Maria puts him in front of the door and banishes him from Madrid .

Thinking about revenge, Salluste develops a clever plan to get back into office: He wants to write an affair to the queen so that the king can chase her away too. Salluste himself wants to uncover the intrigue and thus be pardoned. His nephew Cesar, a robber and stealer, is supposed to be the seducer of the ruler and thus the tool of his plan. But Cesar turns away from his uncle, whereupon the latter takes him prisoner and sells him to Berbers in the Sahara .

Sallustes stupid servant Blasius, who is secretly in love with the queen, has to step in. He immediately gives a tailor-made debut, protects the ruling couple from a bomb attack and is introduced by Salluste as his noble nephew from America. While Salluste remains ostracized, Blasius alias Don Cesar is accepted into the royal circle and wins the favor of Dona Maria.

During a stay in the palace gardens, Blaise confesses his sincere love to the queen. Due to a mix-up, however, without Blasius knowledge, instead of her prudish and junior chambermaid Dona Juana (Alice Sapritch) hears the vows of love, which is now fire and flame for the supposed noblewoman.

Meanwhile, Blasius has found out that the Grande committed the attack on the rulers, and exposes one of them as a mastermind. This is then also banished to the Berbers, where the real Cesar is already languishing. When he hears about his double, he breaks out angry and flees.

Salluste has meanwhile returned to Madrid incognito and finds out that the other grandees are now planning to eliminate Don Cesar and Blasius, who are increasingly gaining in influence. Salluste can finally free him from the predicament on a hacienda - only to take him prisoner a little later.

In the room of an inn at the gates of the capital, Salluste prepares his prisoners for the rendezvous with the queen, whom he has secretly ordered to come here. But it goes wrong: First , the real Cesar, who has fled Africa , bursts into the room and frees Blasius from his shackles, and then suddenly instead of Queen Dona Juana, who has also received the message for the tête-à-tête by mistake, is in the room and Blasius throws himself at his neck hungry for love. In the general hustle and bustle, the king appears, who has been informed of the affair by an anonymous letter from Salluste. After a few turmoil and incidents that ran almost parallel, the monarch finally stands in front of a bed in which Blasius and Dona Juana are lying, while the real Cesar disappears into the night with the queen.

Sallustes plan has failed and he is banished to the Berber desert - together with Blasius, who escapes such a threatened forced marriage with Juana. While Salluste hatches a new plan, the film ends with Blasius fleeing through the desert, pursued by Dona Juana, who has followed her lover.

template

The classic drama Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, written in 1838, served as a template . Here, too, the disgraced Salluste sends his servant Ruy Blas to the royal court as Don Cesar to seduce the queen. However, Ruy Blas falls too deeply into his role. The book was made into a film several times, u. a. 1948 as Ruy Blas - The Queen's Beloved with Jean Marais and Danielle Darrieux and in 2002 with Gérard Depardieu and Carole Bouquet . For his adaptation, Gérard Oury was mainly influenced by the play and the 1948 film template and shifted the material to the comedy subject.

Production notes

The carriage from the film, exhibited at the 1972 French Grand Prix at the Circuit de Charade in Clermont-Ferrand
  • After Le Corniaud ( Louis, das Schlitzohr / Sharp things for Monsieur ) and La grande vadrouille ( Drei Bruchpiloten in Paris / Die Große Sause ), this should be the third major collaboration between de Funès and André Bourvil and the Oury-Thompson-Jullian team. Bourvil died before filming began. Oury was looking for a replacement and found him in Yves Montand , who had already worked his way up to the French cinema star and had also stood in front of the camera in Four in the red circle alongside Bourvil in his last film a year earlier .
  • Filming took place between 1970 and 1971 in both Spain and France. In Spain, the film was mainly shot in Andalusia , around Almería . The town of Pedraza served as a village in the opening sequence. The La Calahorra castle in the Sierra Nevada can also be seen in the opening scene . The gardens of the Alhambra of Granada found a use as a royal gardens, where Blaise Queen Dona Juana and confesses his love. The Isla Minima ranch outside Seville eventually served as the Grand d'Espagne hacienda . A strip of sandy desert near Almería served as the African Berber desert. Other locations were Madrid with its royal buildings, Barcelona and Toledo . After the work in Spain was completed, production was then relocated to the Franstudios in Saint-Maurice, France, where the interior shots were taken.
  • Another reason for moving filming from Spain to France was Montand's refusal to continue filming there. He distanced himself from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco .
  • In the inn scene, Dona wants to seduce Juana Blasius by performing a striptease in front of him . For this scene, the actress Alice Sapritch took training lessons with Sophia Palladium, an erotic dancer from the Parisian nightclub " Crazy Horse ". Palladium also had to stand in for Sapritch as a body double . Since the actress failed to wiggle her waist during her screening, the scene was initially suspended. In the meantime, the production moved to France, where Sapritch was not available for recording. So Palladium put on corsets and frilled lingerie and completed the scene. The difference can be clearly seen in the film. When Sapritch takes off her last skirt and turns around, there is a cut and you can see a shot of the wiggling hips (palladium). The waist is much narrower than before the cut.
  • Sal Borgese , who played the role of Sallustes one-eyed henchman, also acted as stunt coordinator and is known in this role as well as a thug from countless beating comedies with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill .
  • Paul Preboist, who plays the role of the mute servant Sallustes, was almost one of the "regulars" of many Funès films and worked a. a. also in Hibernatus ( Uncle Paul, the great plum ) as well as some gendarme stripes.
  • Louis de Funès returned to the screen eight years later in a role similar to Don Salluste. In Louis, the Miser, loosely based on Moliere's Der Geizige , he plays a weird old man who is greedy for money and stingy and tries to profitably marry his daughter to a senile nobleman.
  • Karin Schubert, who played Queen in the film, came to dubious fame years later when she switched to the adult industry and shot porn. Rumor has it that to this day television stations have refused to show any serious feature films with her.
  • Michel Polnareff composed a film score that seems a little out of place compared to the setting (Spain, 16th century) and is more reminiscent of a western . It is seen as a bow to the Spanish locations. In the area around Almería, where The Stupid Pranks of the Rich was created, a large part of the European westerns (so-called spaghetti wests ), especially those by Sergio Leone , from the 1960s and 1970s were filmed. Even Michael Herbig's Manitou's Shoe created here.
  • For his short flamenco performance, Yves Montand took dance lessons from a professional dancer.

German marketing

While the film is broadcast almost regularly on television in the comedian's home country, it is rarely seen in Germany. The film ran regularly in the 1980s on ARD and its third programs as well as on the television programs of the GDR (DDR / DFF 1 and 2). The film was last shown on German television in autumn 1990. The reason given was expired and no longer renewed license rights.

"La folie des grandeurs" lovers in Germany had to wait until 2009 before a DVD version was released. Under the title of Don Louis are the stupid of Grandeur is now available.

The dubbing of the film had to be changed a little for the German version. In the French original version, the Spanish queen played by Karin Schubert is a German from Bavaria who also speaks German there. In the German version, Schubert received a French accent as well as a corresponding origin from "Lorraine" (which was then still in German). In this context, the Blaze played by Montand became a Blasius. The German version was produced by Deutsche Synchron . The book was written by Franz Otto Krüger and directed by Dietmar Behnke . De Funes was dubbed by the regular speaker Gerd Martienzen .

Reviews

  • "Louis de Funès struggles (...) through this lengthy costume." (Rating: 1½ stars = moderate) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz in Lexicon "Films on TV" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 178
  • "Light comedy with Louis de Funès: platitudes and slapstick are largely covered with turbulence and amusing gags." - " Lexicon of International Films "
  • "... this turbulent and lavishly equipped comedy works very well. Montand is clearly at ease in one of his rare comedic roles, and De Funès is, as always, in his element as a rich and ruthless disgust." Das Große TV-Spielfilm Filmlexikon, 2nd edition, Vol. 2, p. 711.

The Wiesbaden film evaluation agency awarded the production the title valuable .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Stupid Pranks Of The Rich. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .
  2. ↑ The Stupid Pranks Of The Rich. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used