Start the Revolution Without Me

"All the Castles...all the chapels, All the Rocks, the stones, the trees, the flowers, the mud, the dirt.... And I SHALL BE QUEEN"

This movie is hilarious....I saw it on TV a LOOONG time ago, and then I saw it on DVD and bought it, now my sisters and I can't get enough of it....it's classic...."three feet of Persian rug..." haha...."later that night, 1789"....this movie made "pleasure their business" and it's a pleasure watching it.....Whatever...and we can't stop quoting this movie...."I thought it was a costume ball"

It's a great movie....some people don't know what funny is when it hits them in the face...

In a time when so many films are just plain "forgettable," it's good to be able to look back and fondly recall a film that was both funny and memorable.

This movie has it's own unique flavor of comedy while still being reminiscent of great films like "Catch 22," and "Help!" (Maybe it's the appearance of Orson Wells and Victor Spinetti that does this for me...)

There's much more than just slapstick to be had here. Definitely worth the look.

I suppose there are people who have the equivalent of color-blindness affecting their sense of humor. How else to explain the grouches & grinches who can't laugh at this goofy romp. Wilder & Sutherland as a pair of split-at-birth twins - Spinetti & Whitelaw & Griffith & MacGowran as support. Doesn't get much better.

Ten years before the Zuckers made Airplane, television producer Bud Yorkin (All in The Family, Sanford and Son) got in and out of the movie business very quickly with Start the Revolution Without Me (1970), a hilarious parody of just about every movie made about the French Revolution or based on the novels of Dumas. Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland play dual roles as two pairs of mismatched twins. One pair are Corsican noblemen conspiring with Marie and the Count DiSicci to depose the king. The other pair are Parisian peasants trying to escape the fighting. Wilder and Sutherland make a great comedy team (even doing a take off on the patty-cake bit, from the Hope/Crosby Road Pictures). With an introduction by Orson Wells, Hugh Griffith and an assortment of English character actors attempting French accents (I saw this once on a double bill with Tom Jones, and many of the principles are in both films) and a great deal of location footage filmed on the grounds of Versailles including a very chaotic battle scene.

To put it simply, this movie is outrageous. It flopped during its theater tenure because everyone was too high-strung over Vietnam and other period conflicts to actually understand this comedy. This fact is also touched on during the commentary by the director himself.

"Revolution" is in the same league as the Zucker Brothers. It's gags gain momentum as the movie unwinds, until it's whipping around during the last few scenes almost out of control, yet marvelously in control.

This is a movie that has Gene Wilder at his comic peak. He's pre-Wonka and pre-"FrankenSTEEN" here, and hasn't found temperance in his angry hysteria. I've watched this movie close to 15 times, and I can't handle myself when Wilder is galloping around with his stuffed falcon. And the gags in his marriage! "Bring the leather and the honey ... " (His character's wife looks at the camera with a look of worry).

Donald Sutherland is reserved, but he's not well known for his comedy. Yet he has excellent moments, especially in strangling adversaries on the dock with one hand! "...and I shall be the Queeeeen!" The funniest pieces here are actually the lines. Read the quotes! Oh my, a gold mine!