One other commentator stated perfectly that Cafe Rene finally opens its doors. I say it opened them with a bang. Although 'The Reclining Madonna with the Big Boobies' has changed into 'The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies' and Lieutenant Gruber is now less decorated (in the pilot episode, there were more medals on his uniform) all the great components are here. The running gags start to work their way into the viewer's heart, and the witty remarks are truly sharp. Besides perfectly timed comedy, the second episode adds some serious thrills and tension into the mix. Even some of the modern thrillers don't have this amount of edge of your seat suspense.
3 Reviews
Three big boobies!
Sleepin_Dragon31 December 2019
Following on some time later from the wonderful pilot episode, Cafe Rene finally opens its doors, and so begins the successful comedy.
Rene is trying to get rid of the British airmen, coerced by Michelle of the Resistance, but he's stuck because the German officers know what he's up to, he needs a plan to persuade Von Strom to assist.
All of the best bits are here, Madame Edith singing, Michelle's famous catchphrase, and of course Madame Fanny in bed.
So many funny moments, but the killer line is where Monsieur Leclerc delivers that line.... Three big boobies? Side splitting.
Loved it. 8/10
Rene is trying to get rid of the British airmen, coerced by Michelle of the Resistance, but he's stuck because the German officers know what he's up to, he needs a plan to persuade Von Strom to assist.
All of the best bits are here, Madame Edith singing, Michelle's famous catchphrase, and of course Madame Fanny in bed.
So many funny moments, but the killer line is where Monsieur Leclerc delivers that line.... Three big boobies? Side splitting.
Loved it. 8/10
Be Sure to Take the Cheese Out of Your Ears
darryl-tahirali19 April 2022
Poor Rene. The painting of "The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies" he has hidden in the basement of his café could be either his life insurance policy or his death warrant in "The Fallen Madonna" (known in Britain as "The British 'ave Come"), the second episode of the first series of "'Allo 'Allo!," the riotous British situation comedy set in Occupied France in the first half of World War Two. But can he leverage his stewardship of the, er, titular artwork by the fictitious Van Klomp to rid himself of the two fugitive British airmen, Flight Lieutenants Fairfax and Carstairs, he is hiding on behalf of Michelle "of the Resistance" and to keep from being tortured by the Gestapo?
Such are the dilemmas posed in the intricate, interlocking, but entirely hilarious script from the fecund minds of series creators Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, who keep the large ensemble cast in purposeful motion as Croft, who also produced and directed, guides them in a seamless close-order drill that never flags.
Rene is hiding the artwork on behalf of German Colonel Von Strohm, who knows about the British airmen and threatens Rene with Gestapo interrogation. However, Von Strohm doesn't have much of a leg to stand on since he purloined the painting to be his postwar nest egg, only to discover that it is coveted by none other than Adolf Hitler himself, with local Gestapo agent Herr Flick in hot pursuit--when he's not coolly commanding Von Strohm's secretary Private Geerhart in a clipped but (ahem) titillating dominant-submissive relationship.
Indeed, bawdy humor and salacious suggestion distinguish "'Allo 'Allo!" from American fare simply by streamlining it into the multifaceted narrative as part of the characters' everyday experience and not belaboring it like sniggering schoolboys sneaking their first peek at "Playboy." For example, as Rene and his comely waitress Yvette, with whom he is having an affair, are sealing up the hiding place of the painting with brick and mortar, he tosses off a juicy double entendre, "it's getting hard, and I have to put it in now," as a throwaway line but one that an American sitcom such as "Three's Company" would dwell on endlessly--if indeed it could be that explicit.
Similarly, the sexual availability of Yvette and Maria, the other waitress with whom Rene is also carrying on, becomes the bargaining chip Rene uses on Von Strohm and his adjutant Captain Geering to wheedle the uniforms off their backs--while Yvette and Maria wind up on theirs, with flying helmets and eggbeaters--to disguise the British fliers during their escape while carrying the "Fallen Madonna with Big Boobies" to be copied in Rene's ploy to substitute a forgery for the real thing and get the Gestapo off all their backs.
There is much more, as not a moment is wasted in "The Fallen Madonna," but why waste time describing it when you can see it for yourselves? Or hear it, as Rene's wife Edith's singing must be heard to be believed--that is, if you can take the cheese out of your ears.
Such are the dilemmas posed in the intricate, interlocking, but entirely hilarious script from the fecund minds of series creators Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, who keep the large ensemble cast in purposeful motion as Croft, who also produced and directed, guides them in a seamless close-order drill that never flags.
Rene is hiding the artwork on behalf of German Colonel Von Strohm, who knows about the British airmen and threatens Rene with Gestapo interrogation. However, Von Strohm doesn't have much of a leg to stand on since he purloined the painting to be his postwar nest egg, only to discover that it is coveted by none other than Adolf Hitler himself, with local Gestapo agent Herr Flick in hot pursuit--when he's not coolly commanding Von Strohm's secretary Private Geerhart in a clipped but (ahem) titillating dominant-submissive relationship.
Indeed, bawdy humor and salacious suggestion distinguish "'Allo 'Allo!" from American fare simply by streamlining it into the multifaceted narrative as part of the characters' everyday experience and not belaboring it like sniggering schoolboys sneaking their first peek at "Playboy." For example, as Rene and his comely waitress Yvette, with whom he is having an affair, are sealing up the hiding place of the painting with brick and mortar, he tosses off a juicy double entendre, "it's getting hard, and I have to put it in now," as a throwaway line but one that an American sitcom such as "Three's Company" would dwell on endlessly--if indeed it could be that explicit.
Similarly, the sexual availability of Yvette and Maria, the other waitress with whom Rene is also carrying on, becomes the bargaining chip Rene uses on Von Strohm and his adjutant Captain Geering to wheedle the uniforms off their backs--while Yvette and Maria wind up on theirs, with flying helmets and eggbeaters--to disguise the British fliers during their escape while carrying the "Fallen Madonna with Big Boobies" to be copied in Rene's ploy to substitute a forgery for the real thing and get the Gestapo off all their backs.
There is much more, as not a moment is wasted in "The Fallen Madonna," but why waste time describing it when you can see it for yourselves? Or hear it, as Rene's wife Edith's singing must be heard to be believed--that is, if you can take the cheese out of your ears.
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