La classe américaine

Take a bit of El Dorado, a bit of President's men, a part of Citizen Kane, (etc.), keep the usual dubbing French voice but create another story... Unique, hilarious, perfect

I'm still wondering how Canal + may have produced such a bombshell...Producing a movie sampling so much 70s classics surely was a producer's nightmare but, hey, it was worth the pain! George Abitbol, aka John Wayne, aka the hippest man on earth, disappears leaving only a few words..."Shitty world". Reminds you of Citizen Kane? Well, that's it and this is not the only movie you'll be thinking of, as the whole movie is sampled from all-time classics, with Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford or Steve Mc Queen on his trail...You'll also have cameos of Ernest Borgnine, Jean-Michael Vincent and so on...In fact, if you happened to watch TV during the last 2 decades, you have already seen that movie, just not in that order! The work on the editing of the whole is simply brilliant, and should be studied in any audiovisual school... If you love stupid humor, irreverence and smart dumb-a$$ jokes, this one is for you!If there was a reason to learn french, this is it, as I really don't know how this can be translated... This is definitely a must-see for anyone willing whether to pee his pants, or learn french or editing.Run for it!

I discovered recently the "Grand Détournement" series: small scenes of movies, assembled in an absurdly hilarious patchwork and dubbed by French actors.

Being quite fond of absurd humor (I especially love seeing serious movie stars say something completely out of bounds with what was said in the original movie...), I knew I was a potential target for these shows...

However, having now seen all 3 of them (I think there were only 3), I must say that "La classe américaine" is not my favorite and this by a long way! Had I discovered it first, I would surely have rated it much higher, it sure does have its funny moments, but it is a bit too long for what it gives us... Since there is clearly no plot, you keep expecting jokes for 80 minutes and it does not always succeed to keep your attention alive...

I feel compelled to tell you to watch "ça détourne" aka "Le triomphe de Bali-Balo ou la splendeur de la honte" instead... It lasts only 45 minutes, but of pure condensed fun without a single time-out. Seeing Steve Mc Queen as a "serial joker" is quite unique and leaves "La classe américaine" a bit behind. The third one "Derrick vs Superman" is the poorest of the series, fortunately, it lasts only 15 minutes and has a few good moments...

This movie could be considered as the lost "Les Nuls" movie, for they dubbed some of the characters. Also, it contains the same humour as in their own movie, "La Cité de la Peur". It's a remake of Citizen Kane, but more comedy-like (much more!) This film gathers the most famous casting ever. But they didn't play in this movie, it's just a french-dubbed archive footage, and French viewers will recognize the official voices of all actors.

The plot appears to be nonsense : George dies because of an accident caused by a storm, but apparently someone tried to kill him ; Orson Welles interrupts the story to complain about plagiarism then get shot. But it doesn't really matter : You just have to enjoy the funny scenes one after another. The very humour of this film comes from the french script. Could you imagine Henry Fonda say "it's easy to call people gay because two men live together in a ranch and they wear leather trousers"? Well, it happened.

For French people and well-understanding French speaking people an absolute must see !

As said in the comment's title, I wonder why it's not well/better known...

Why not, really ?

It's hilarious, delirious, and with some quiet inoffensive slang...

So that any grown-up person who is a movies lover could almost laugh all along the movie.

The French dialogue fits completely to the expressive attitude of the actors,

with even the lips movements which could make us think it is not an invented one, but the real original English lines...

With plenty ironic light trashy permutations of the original English dialogues and meaning of the scenes.

Without knowing the movies in which the different parts have been taken and assembled,

for sure the fun can't be the same... :-(

I define myself as a wide-open movie lover, from classic to martial arts (except horror :-),

and especially comedies but I never heard about this fantastic one before yesterday,

as someone mentioned it on a computer info's sharing site, to my great surprise.

Read straight afterward the excellent reviews here on the site...

Could find it and watched it in the evening...

What a pleasure ! So many laughs ! Just perfect !

For comedy lovers : a must see !!!

Unfortunately and for once the Anglo-American speaking audience will miss this one... :-)

*** a film is never really good unless the camera is an eyes in the head of a poet Orson Welles ***