''Start the Revolution Without Me'' is a 1970 British-French-American period

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by Bud Yorkin and starring Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, Hugh Griffith,

Jack MacGowran John Joseph MacGowran (13 October 1918 – 30 January 1973) was an Irish actor, probably best known for his work with Samuel Beckett. Stage career MacGowran was born on 13 October 1918 in Dublin, and educated at Synge Street CBS. He establi ...

Billie Whitelaw Billie Honor Whitelaw (6 June 1932 – 21 December 2014) was an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and was regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was a ...

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

(playing himself as narrator) and

Victor Spinetti Vittorio Giorgio Andre "Victor" Spinetti (2 September 1929 – 19 June 2012) was a Welsh actor, author, poet, and raconteur. He appeared in dozens of films and stage plays throughout his 50-year career, including the three 1960s Beatles films ...

. The comedy is set in revolutionary France where two peasants are mistaken for the famous Corsican Brothers. The film is considered a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

of a number of works of historical fiction about the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

and French history in general, including '' A Tale of Two Cities'' (1859) by

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

and two works by

Alexandre Dumas Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where '' '' is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer ...

, '' The Corsican Brothers'' (1844) and '' The Man in the Iron Mask'' (1847).

Plot

Two sets of identical twins are accidentally switched at birth. One pair, Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi, are aristocratic and haughty, while the other, Charles and Claude Coupé, are poor and dim-witted. On the eve of the French Revolution, both sets find themselves entangled in palace intrigue.

Cast

* Gene Wilder as Phillipe/Claude * Donald Sutherland as Pierre/Charles * Hugh Griffith as

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

as Jacques *

Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...

as Duke d'Escargot *

Ewa Aulin Ewa Birgitta Aulin (born 13 February 1950) is a Swedish former actress who appeared in a number of Italian and some American films in the 1960s and 1970s. She is remembered for playing the title character in the cult film ''Candy'' where she appea ...

as Princess Christina *

Helen Fraser Helen Fraser may refer to: * Helen Fraser (actress) (born 1942), English actress * Helen Fraser (executive) (born 1949), British executive and businesswoman * Helen Fraser (feminist) Helen Miller Fraser, later Moyes (14 September 1881 – 2 D ...

as Mimi Montage *

Rosalind Knight Rosalind Marie Knight (3 December 1933 – 19 December 2020) was an English actress. Her career spanned 70 years on stage, screen, and television. Her film appearances include ''Blue Murder at St Trinian's'' (1957), ''Carry On Nurse'' (1959), ' ...

as Helene de Sisi * Harry Fowler as Marcel * Murray Melvin as Blind Man * Graham Stark as Andre Coupe *

as The Narrator

Reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' panned the film, writing: "The performances are desperate, without being in any way memorable, thus matching the wit of the screenplay." Arthur D. Murphy of '' Variety'' called the film "disappointing," finding that " e final mix never jells, despite some occasional, and genuine, hilarity ... There is a sluggishness and heaviness to some of the direction when the script is in good shape; and when the direction has lightness and zest, the script is in a slump."

Gene Siskel Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the '' Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his ...

gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and declared it "a terribly funny parody of the over-stuffed 18th century costume dramas that crowd the vaults of many a major studio."

Charles Champlin Charles Davenport Champlin (March 23, 1926 – November 16, 2014) was an American film critic and writer. Life and career Champlin was born in Hammondsport, New York. He attended high school in Camden, New York, working as a columnist for the ...

of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' praised the film as "an absolutely georgeous piece of costume kookery, a dazzling and sustained farce which is also a mad, affectionate tribute to every epee epic, every sabre-and-sex, bodice-and-bodkin historical melodrama anybody ever saw." Gary Arnold of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' wrote that the film "is not without some oafish and wrong-headed touches, but on the whole it's a witty and engaging picture, an affectionate and competent revival of traditional farce." Richard Combs of '' The Monthly Film Bulletin'' thought that Sutherland and Wilder "carry off an assortment of roles in lively fashion," but "the pacing of the film as a whole is unpleasantly jarring."

Awards

The film's screenwriters Fred Freeman and Lawrence J. Cohen were nominated for a WGA award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen in 1971. Billie Whitelaw & Hugh Griffith (1970)

References

External links

* {{The Corsican Brothers 1970 films 1970s historical comedy films American historical comedy films American parody films French Revolution films Cultural depictions of Louis XVI Films about twin brothers Films based on The Corsican Brothers Films based on A Tale of Two Cities Films directed by Bud Yorkin Films scored by John Addison Films shot in France Films set in Corsica Warner Bros. films 1970s parody films 1970 comedy films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films