''Les Barbouzes'' (
Barbouze being French slang for a spy, deriving from the idea that spies hide behind false beards) is a 1964 French cult comedy film, screened in the USA as ''The Great Spy Chase''.
Starring
Lino Ventura,
Bernard Blier
Bernard Blier (11 January 1916 – 29 March 1989) was a French character actor.
He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his father, a researcher at the Pasteur Institute, was posted at the time.
Life and career
His rotund features and ...
and
Mireille Darc
Mireille Darc (; 15 May 1938 – 28 August 2017) was a French model and actress. She appeared as a lead character in Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 film '' Weekend''. Darc was a Knight of the Legion of Honour and Commander of the National Order of Me ...
, with witty dialogue by
Michel Audiard
Paul Michel Audiard (; 15 May 1920 – 27 July 1985) was a French screenwriter and film director, known for his witty, irreverent and slang-laden dialogues which made him a prominent figure on the French cultural scene of the 1960s and 1970s. He ...
, it is an espionage caper built around the efforts of agents from various countries to extract valuable weaponry patents from the young and attractive widow of an international arms dealer.
Plot
In Paris, French counter-espionage are alerted to the death in an expensive brothel of international arms dealer Shah. To avoid repercussions and to exploit this opportunity, they smuggle his corpse back to his castle in
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
in the care of top agent Francis, posing as the dead man's cousin Ludo. There he hands it over to the young and very attractive French widow Amaranth, who is now the legal owner of the valuable patents for nuclear weaponry that Shah had acquired. The fake cousin Ludo's mission is to get the patents for France, but he is joined at the castle by a fake Russian stepbrother Boris, a fake German psychoanalyst Hans and a fake Swiss priest Eusebio.
After trying unsuccessfully to eliminate each other by such devices as a bomb in the bathroom cistern and a scorpion in the bed, the four agents agree an uneasy truce and instead concentrate on charming the widow. While she is in no hurry to decide the future of her person or her patents, the shaky alliance of the spies faces two new challenges. One is O'Brien, a brash American who regularly bursts in and is regularly thrown out into the moat by the temporary allies. The other is gradual and subtle, in the form of Chinese spies who infiltrate the castle by killing the servants one by one and assuming their clothes and jobs.
Following a climactic battle in which the hordes of Chinese using martial arts are eliminated, Francis is admitted to the widow's bed and in the morning escapes with her to
Lisbon
Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...
, where the patents are in a bank vault. She, regarding the trip as an advance honeymoon with her next husband, agrees to return to France with him and the patents. But the three foiled spies and O'Brien have not given up, leading to further battles which demolish part of the Portuguese hotel and result in bodies dropping regularly from the night express to Paris. In the end, as a patriotic act to secure the patents for France, Francis commits bigamy by marrying Amaranth.
Principal cast
*
Lino Ventura: Francis Lagneau, a French spy nicknamed "Cousin Ludo"
*
Bernard Blier
Bernard Blier (11 January 1916 – 29 March 1989) was a French character actor.
He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his father, a researcher at the Pasteur Institute, was posted at the time.
Life and career
His rotund features and ...
: Eusebio Cafarelli, a Swiss spy nicknamed "The Canon"
*
Mireille Darc
Mireille Darc (; 15 May 1938 – 28 August 2017) was a French model and actress. She appeared as a lead character in Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 film '' Weekend''. Darc was a Knight of the Legion of Honour and Commander of the National Order of Me ...
: Antoinette Dubois, a French widow calling herself "Amaranthe"
*
Charles Millot
Charles Millot (born Veljko Milojević; 23 December 1921 – 6 October 2003) was a Yugoslav-born French actor who made many film appearances over a 35-year period.
His notable film appearances include: '' The Train'' (1964), ''The Night of t ...
: Hans Müller, a German spy nicknamed "The Good Doctor"
*
Francis Blanche
François Jean Blanche, known as "Francis Blanche" (20 July 1921 – 6 July 1974) was a French actor, singer, humorist and author. He was a very popular figure on stage, radio and in films, during the 1950s and 1960s.
Early life
Blanche was ...
: Boris Vassilieff, a Russian spy nicknamed "Trinitrotoluene"
* : Rossini, Shah's aide nicknamed "Faithful Rudolph"
*
Jess Hahn
Jesse Beryle Hahn (October 29, 1921June 29, 1998) was an American-French character actor who mostly starred in French films.
Biography
After serving with the Marines in the Second World War, he moved to France in 1949 and took French citizen ...
: "Commodore" O'Brien, an American
*
Noël Roquevert: Colonel Lanoix, Francis' control
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Spy Chase, The
1964 films
Films directed by Georges Lautner
French spy comedy films
Films with screenplays by Michel Audiard
Films with screenplays by Albert Simonin
1960s spy comedy films
1964 comedy films
Cold War spy films
1960s French films