Monte Carlo or Bust

Monte Carlo or Bust
US Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ken Annakin
Produced by	Ken Annakin
Written by	Ken Annakin Jack Davies
Starring	Tony Curtis Bourvil Lando Buzzanca Walter Chiari Peter Cook
Music by	Ron Goodwin
Cinematography	Bertil Palmgren Gábor Pogány Walter Wottitz
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	1969 (1969)
Running time	122 min. (US)
Country	United Kingdom / France / Italy
Language	English

Monte Carlo or Bust is a 1969 comedy film. The story is based on the Monte Carlo Rally - first raced in 1911 - and the film recalls this general era, set in the 1920s. The film is a British/French/Italian co-production, and was released in the United States under the title Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies. The animation in the film, 'big, bold, slapdash', was the work of Ronald Searle.

The film is a big lavish all-star film, (Paramount put $10 million into the film), ^[1] a comedy caper, an epic car rally across Europe that involves a lot of eccentric characters from all over the world who will stop at nothing to win.

The film is a sequel to the 1965 hit Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. Like the earlier film, it was written by Ken Annakin and Jack Davies and directed by Annakin, with music by Ron Goodwin. Some of the cast from the first film also returned, including Gert Fröbe, Eric Sykes and Terry-Thomas; the latter appeared as the equally dastardly son of the character he had played in the earlier film. Tony Curtis and Susan Hampshire played other contestants in the race.

The film was originally intended to be called Monte Carlo and All That Jazz. The American distributors Paramount Pictures re-titled it Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies in order to tie it to Annakin's 1965 film.

Cast

• Bourvil as Monsieur Dupont
• Lando Buzzanca as Marcelo
• Walter Chiari as Angelo
• Peter Cook as Major Dawlish
• Tony Curtis as Chester Schofield
• Mireille Darc
• Marie Dubois
• Ulf Fransson
• Gert Fröbe as Willie Schickel/Horst Muller
• Susan Hampshire as Betty
• Jack Hawkins as Count Levinovitch
• Nicoletta Machiavelli
• Dudley Moore as Lt Barrington
• Peer Schmidt as Otto Schwartz
• Eric Sykes as Perkins
• Terry-Thomas as Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage, Bt
• Jacques Duby
• Hattie Jacques
• Derren Nesbitt
• Nicholas Phipps
• William Rushton
• Michael Trubshawe
• Richard Wattis
• Walter Williams

Notes

In the opinion of the writer Matthew Sweet, Peter Cook (as Major Dawlish), and Dudley Moore, (Barrington), are the performers who have the humour in the film that survives best. It is the send-up of Empire, " which is very 1960s and not far from the sort of thing they would have been doing in The Establishment Club in Soho a few years earlier, where really for the first time, these upper-class stereotypes had been sent up with a vein of cruelty as well as a vein of affection. I think you can see it as a kind of post-Empire film." Cook and Moore play the representatives of Empire:

• Major Dawlish (Cook): I think it's pretty clear whose side the Lord is on, Barrington.

  Barrington (Moore): England, sir?

  Major Dawlish (Cook): Naturally."

Peter Cook's Major Dawlish is the creator of a series of fairly ludicrous inventions - the feeling hovers "that it might be all over for Britain." ^[2]

References

1. ^ The Movie that changed my Life , with Joe Brown, BBC Radio 2, 21 August 2009
2. ^ Matthew Sweet, speaking on The Movie that Changed my Life, Radio 2, 21 August 2009

External links

• Monte Carlo or Bust at the Internet Movie Database
• Monte Carlo or Bust at AllRovi
• Monte Carlo or Bust at Rotten Tomatoes