''The Army Game'' (french: Tire-au-flanc 62) is a 1961 French

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

about induction and basic training of army conscripts, co-directed by

François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more tha ...

and

Claude de Givray Claude de Givray (born 7 April 1933) is a French film director and screenwriter. In 1960 he was co-director with François Truffaut for ''The Army Game (film), Tire-au flanc''. He directed the 1965 film ''Un mari à un prix fixe'', which starred ...

. It recorded admissions of 1,290,967 in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Plot

The upper-class Jean, amiable but not very bright, is called up to do his military service. Adrift in this strange world, he finds a helpful fellow-recruit in his family's worldly-wise chauffeur Joseph. But nothing can save him from his mental and physical ineptitude, which infuriates his instructors, amuses his fellow-soldiers and humiliates him. The bright light in his existence is Catherine, the colonel's charming daughter, after whom he yearns. Things look up for him when the barracks puts on the play ''Tire-au-flanc'', in which Joseph has the part of the incompetent young aristocrat while he plays the wily servant. His success in the role impresses everybody and Catherine is happy to go out with the new hero.

Cast

* Christian de Tillière as Jean Lerat de la Grinotière * Ricet Barrier as Joseph Vidauban * Jacques Balutin as Corporal Bourrache *

Pierre Maguelon Pierre Maguelon (3 September 1933 – 10 July 2010) was a French actor. Selected filmography * ''Tire-au-flanc 62'' (1960) * '' The President'' (1961) - Un parlementaire (uncredited) * ''Cartouche'' (1962) - Un complice de Cartouche (uncredited ...

as Petit Bobo *

Serge Korber Serge Korber (1 February 1936 – 23 January 2022) was a French film director and screenwriter. He directed more than 40 films between 1962 and 2007. Successful as the director of comedies starring Louis de Funès in ''L'homme orchestre'' and '' ...

as Un troupier * Pierre Fabre as Un troupier * Jean-Marie Rivière as Un troupier *

Cabu Jean Maurice Jules Cabut (; 13 January 19387 January 2015), known by the pen-name Cabu (), was a French comic strip artist and caricaturist. He was murdered in the January 2015 shooting attack on the ''Charlie Hebdo'' newspaper offices. Cabu w ...

as Un troupier *

Jean-François Adam Jean-François Adam ( 14 October 1980) was a French actor and director. Career Adam was an assistant to French filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Melville. He is known for having played the small role of Colette's lover in the Anto ...

as Un troupier *

Jean-Claude Brialy Jean-Claude Brialy (30 March 1933 – 30 May 2007) was a French actor and film director. Early life Brialy was born in Aumale (now Sour El-Ghozlane), French Algeria, where his father was stationed with the French Army. Brialy moved to mainland ...

as Capitain *

Bernadette Lafont Bernadette Lafont (28 October 1938 – 25 July 2013) was a French actress who appeared in more than 120 feature films. She has been considered "the face of French New Wave". In 1999 she told ''The New York Times'' her work was "the motor of my e ...

as herself *

Pierre Étaix Pierre Étaix (; 23 November 1928 – 14 October 2016) was a French clown, comedian and filmmaker. Étaix made a series of short- and feature-length films, many of them co-written by influential screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. He won an Acade ...

Production

Based on a stage play, the story had been filmed by

Jean Renoir Jean Renoir (; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent film, silent era to the end of the 1960s. ...

in 1928 and also by

Fernand Rivers Fernand Rivers (born François Large, 6 September 1879, Saint-Lager - 12 September 1960) was a French actor, screenwriter, film producer and director. He was the brother of the actor Rivers Cadet. Partial filmography Director * '' The Ironmaster' ...

in 1950. For its third outing on celluloid, the makers adopted a knowingly light-hearted approach to the material, re-using old visual and verbal gags and inserting humorous homages to earlier works such as

Vigo Vigo ( , , , ) is a city and Municipalities in Spain, municipality in the province of Pontevedra, within the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, Spain. Located in the northwest of the Iberian Penins ...

's ''

À propos de Nice ''À propos de Nice'' is a 1930 silent short documentary film directed by Jean Vigo and photographed by Boris Kaufman. The film depicts life in Nice, France by documenting the people in the city, their daily routines, a carnival and social ineq ...

'' and Zinneman's '' Oklahoma!''. There were also cameos for André Mouëzy-Éon, who wrote the original play, for François Truffaut, one of the two directors, and for two stars he used in his films, Bernadette Lafont and Jean-Claude Brialy.

References

External links

* 1961 films French black-and-white films French comedy films French films based on plays 1961 comedy films 1960s French-language films 1960s French films {{1960s-France-film-stub