Where, please, are you going to the front?

Movie
German title	Where, please, are you going to the front?
Original title	Which way to the front?
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1970
length	96 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Jerry Lewis
script	Gerald Gardner Dee Caruso Richard Miller
production	Jerry Lewis
music	Louis Y. Brown
camera	W. Wallace Kelley
cut	Russel Wiles
occupation
Jerry Lewis : Brendan Byers III / Field Marshal General Karl-Ernst Retterling John Wood : Secretary Finkel Willie Davis : Chauffeur Lincoln Jan Murray : Sid Hackle Steve Franken : Peter Bland Dack Rambo : Terry Love Paul Winchell : Schröder Harold J. Stone : General Buck Sidney Miller : Hitler Kaye Ballard : Senora Messina Neil Hamilton : Chief of Staff

Where, please, are you going to the front? (Original title: Which Way to the Front? ) Is a military grotesque about World War II from 1970 in which Jerry Lewis ridicules the military and the glorification of war. The film was produced by Jerry Lewis, who also directed and starred.

action

The US billionaire Brendan Byers III feels bored, he has already done everything, seen everything, nothing can irritate him anymore. When he had to show up for military service in 1943, he was hopeful of finally finding an interesting job again. But he is being retired.

Together with three other men who are also considered unfit for the US Army, his chauffeur Lincoln and Secretary Finkel, he quickly founds his own private army. Since Byers looks astonishingly like a German officer in Italy, it is his plan to kidnap Field Marshal Karl-Ernst Retterling and take his place in order to order the withdrawal of the German troops. The project succeeds under adventurous circumstances, finally Byers meets Adolf Hitler in order to destroy him with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.

criticism

The lexicon of international films saw a "gag-rich, self-deprecating comedy by and with Jerry Lewis only at the beginning". Howard Thompson noted in the New York Times that “tiresome repetition of the gags grinds the rather original idea down, slowing the pace of the film. But even the weakest and slackest Lewis comedies contain moments of great facial expressions, including here. "

background

The film was panned by critics and was a financial disaster. Lewis's project The Day the Clown Cried (1972), based on Which Way to the Front? was to follow, was not listed, not least because of this failure. It wasn't until eight years later that Jerry Lewis made another film.

In a small role as a Japanese gardener and alleged military instructor, George Takei can be seen, who is known as the actor of Hikaru Sulu in the Star Trek television series Spaceship Enterprise and the subsequent films.

Web links

• Where, please, are you going to the front? in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• German fan page for this film

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Where, please, are you going to the front? In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .  
2. ^ [1] Thompson's review in the New York Times, September 5, 1970