The Great Spy Chase (1964) User Reviews

cult comedy

[myriamlenys · 7/10 · 16 May 2019]

When an international arms dealer dies, he leaves his inheritance to his young widow. Since the inheritance includes a whole array of tactically and strategically important assets, various nations want to charm, influence or intimidate the said widow. A whole army of secret agents is ready to use all means fair or foul...

"Les Barbouzes" is a spoof of the spy genre. The first half of the movie is delectable : sharp, playful, cynical, silly. Sadly the quality of the movie descends, descends, descends... Near the end many a viewer will be sure to yawn with boredom.

The movie is at its cynical, quick-witted best when dissecting official lies and propaganda. The dead arms dealer is a depraved hyper-capitalist grown fat by fomenting war and oppressing the poor and innocent. His widow (a very beautiful Mireille Darc, by the way) is a successful ex-prostitute canny enough to have caught an ageing sensualist. However, a number of nations, chief among them the country of France, find it expedient to pretend that this was a great and good man, who died an admirable death. As a result the newspapers and television programmes carry nothing but loving praise, while the man's nasty intrigues get buried under the flowers and telegrams. Visitors tearfully evoke his humanity, his decency, his piety, his delicacy. By the same alchemy the young tart becomes a great lady who bears her grief with Christian heroism.

I'm pretty sure that many real-life criminals and dictators have been buried under similar circumstances...

A great parody, but prefer "les tontons flingueurs"

[juliensp · 6/10 · 10 June 2002]

A tipically popular French movie of the 60s with great actor, great dialogues and a directing, if not very clean, efficient in spite of modest means. However,scenario is flatter than in others Audiard's movies and some scenes are too long to be funny. Movie as a whole is endless and a sharper, more concise style would have been benefic to the drama. I still recommend to see this movie, which remains creative, and which is a real, in opposition with e.g. "Austin Powers", a parody of a parody (James Bonds) only based on gimmiks. "Les Barbouzes" is a stand-alone movie, a piece in the great wall of cine-history, which is not Mike Meier's art.

THE great spies parody movie

[franzgehl · 9/10 · 31 August 2000]

You can do nothing but laugh when you watch this one : spies from different countries try to get some plans owned by a rich man who died recently. The most important thing is the actors playing : this latter are at they best (Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Francis Blanche, Noel Roquevert, Robert Darban). Watch the movie on french to appreciate the actors speaking talent !

Mireille Darc is in it, so I thought I'd watch...

[bob998 · 20 December 2006]

...and I'm sorry I did, because this one is just so weak. Script by Audiard, direction by Lautner, male lead Ventura: the winning combination that made Les Tontons flingueurs so enjoyable fails miserably here. It's a spy story, see, and the French, Italian, Swiss and Russian spies, plus a whole bunch of other people are trying to kill each other to come up with the formulas for superweapons. The action is drawn out and repetitive, the corpses just mount up and the audience is not charmed by the humour (there are almost no laughs in this).

Lino Ventura and Mireille Darc as the odd couple are at least fun to look at. I have always been a fan of hers; love those pert eyes and big giblet lips that are bigger than Mick Jagger's. Watch for Jess Hahn as the American spy, he's a funny guy.

Secret war (dad)

[leplatypus · 4/10 · 10 September 2017]

I pick this movie for 3 reasons : 1) to plug my missing years in cinema history (at least, one movie each year since cinema has been invented) and here it's 1964. 2) to get back to my roots : i'm French but mostly i watch American productions thus i'm nearly ignorant about my culture ! 3) because movies allows time travels : today, the movies are so bad that it's better to search into the past to find original story, talented cast…

So here we have a black and white comedy about international spies during the cold war. I can't deny that there is some really funny moments, true inspiration and a love for the language. As seen in Le Professionnel, Lautner is a dynamic director and who practices a clear editing : we know where we go, we understand what happens even if it's an action movie with guns and fights !

However, the movie has the feel of a retirement home : the 4 spies are rather old men (almost 50 years) and whatever their talent, i can't believe Blier nor Blanche as active agents ! This heavy team meets in an old German castle and one more time, it smells old age, aggravated by the fact that they stay mostly inside it…

In short, the movie is worth of watching but unlikely to be in my classics

Fine

[Apollo15AnnoPianoCatDogSnailAnt · 5/10 · 28 April 2020]

Fine movie very fun and awesome exquisite turnabouts.

Very boring!

[RodrigAndrisan · 22 March 2021]

It's comedy but you don't laugh. The best actor is Bernard Blier, I love him, in other movies! Same, Lino Ventura, I love him too, again, in other films. Just a little bit funny here are Jess Hahn and Francis Blanche. The whole movie is a long, long talk inside a castle. Indeed, there are some fights and shootings too, but they all look exactly the same. And there are some more similar scenes on a train.