Die gelbe Karawane

Inspired from actual events, this fiction adventure tv show from France actually hired some foreign actors, such Wolfgang Preiss and Bill Kearns - but as an American, Kearns often starred US folks in French movies, as Jacques Marin was the typical French for the American films. And what a surprise to have here Coluche in a role which - as you can guess - let him some comical lines. It is an interesting but sometimes unlikely and ankward piece fo work; it shows the thousands of problems that these men encountered during this long, long, long and perilous journey. All the ransoms, bribes, they had to pay to be left alone, not being attacked by bandits of all kinds. All the dangerous passages which they had to get through in the Himalaya mountains, the water, thirst issues when they had to cross the Gobi desert. It is never boring, and the peculiarity of this film is that one episode out of two presents a different crew, different characters, who are supposed to meet in the end. But will they make it in the end?

This was a TV movie shown in several episodes on French TV tracing the story of the Citroen expeditions in 1931/1932 driving across Asia, one starting from Beijing and one starting from Beirut. Coluche stars as a Citroen mechanic. The DVD used to be available on Warner Home Video in France but it is since sold out.