Danièle Thompson: “La Grande Vadrouille has ennobled French comedy”

The co-writer of the film and daughter of Gérard Oury takes a look back.

On this eve of the public holiday, France 2 is banking on a great classic of French comedy: The Great Mop returns. At the end of 2016, First had met Danielle Thompson to discuss the crazy success of this comedy. An interview to (re)read to wait…

Interview from December 8, 2016. The Great Mop was released in French cinemas 50 years ago to the day. A few months ago, we met Danielle Thompsonco-writer of the film and daughter of Gérard Ouryto evoke the heritage of this film belonging to the heritage of French cinema.

I watched the film again yesterday with children aged 8 and 12, they had never seen it, they loved it.
Did you watch it on a nice screen?

Yes, yes, a very large TV…
And it was the blu-ray?

Yes, the HD restoration is superb.
Ah yes, yes it gives all its character to the film. I’m asking you this because it’s a film that is important to discover in optimal screening conditions. It’s good that the children were able to see it like that.

The paradox is that many of us have seen it again and again on TVs with cathode ray tubes. And never having seen it in the cinema…
And yes, TV is a double-edged sword, eh. The film continues to live thanks to her but obviously she distorts it. I’m trying to go see again The Big Mop to the cinema as soon as the opportunity presents itself. There was a memorable screening at the Paris Opera at the time of the release of the DVD box set which included the film and the Corniaud. And seeing the opera stage on a giant screen inside the same opera house, I can tell you it’s dizzying (laughs). But ultimately the survival of films is television.

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Except that now there are more and more TV channels, the films are less highlighted, and as a result we ask questions about the posterity of The Big Mop among younger generations.
And yes, it’s the era of series. That’s how it is and that’s good, first of all because these series are very good, and they are designed for these screens. But yes, you have to get used to it The Big Mop becomes in a way an “old film”. You’re here because he’s celebrating his 50th birthday, right? (smiles). Perhaps TV will rebroadcast it less, that it will be seen less, perhaps even that soon we will only see it in reruns, where film buffs meet. Why not… And so the little ones, did they stay until the end?

Ah yes, amazed.
(laughs) It was one of my father’s great joys to see that until the end of his life his films were loved by younger generations. He couldn’t believe it. And you haven’t seen him for how long?

A little over fifteen years I would say. And, it’s anecdotal, but I was convinced that it was a Gaumont film, when not at all…
Oh no, Gaumont is missing the film! My father and Alain Poiré (flagship producer of Gaumont at the time) were very friends, Poiré had also produced his first films, but he did not want to follow him on Le Corniaudat least not with the conditions imposed by my father. It was Robert Dorfmann, a very risk-taking independent, who agreed to produce the project. As a result, they have 11 million entries, and since we don’t change a winning team, my father sets the table again with Dorfmann, de Funès and Bourvil for The Big Mop. And they make 17…

After that, Alain Poiré, immediately put the hook back on your father to The Brain.
Yes, and they will do a few other sets, including Madness of Grandeur. But Poiré also missed out on Rabbi Jacob ! When my father told him, “I wrote a comedy about Hasidic rabbis,” the subject scared him.

It surprised me, in fact, when rewatching La Grande Vadrouille, to what extent the film never addresses the Jewish question, nor that of collaboration. Were there taboos on this subject during the writing?
What we already knew was that it was obviously not a film about deportation… Our concern, given that there had been few comedies about the war, was to know if it was wrong shock the French that we are laughing with the Germans and this whole dark period which had ended barely twenty years before. What amused us was to tell the story of these two average French people who are neither heroes nor collaborators – which is what the vast majority of people were during the war. I believe that this choice is the big key to the film’s popularity, even today. We told the story of two people who are not ready to become heroes but who will end up becoming one through force of circumstances. One of our great models was To Be Or Not To Be, but we couldn’t afford to go as far as Lubitsch. Lubitsch can make all the jokes about Concentration-Camp Ehrhardt because it’s 42 and he still knows nothing about the horror of the camps. We knew. And it was too close to us. My father actually waited around fifteen years to tackle head-on what was darkest about this period, with The Ace of Aces…

50 years later, what legacy do you think has left The Big Mop in popular French cinema?
I think it somehow “ennobled” French comedy. Before Le Corniaud And The Big Mopcomedies were always “little films” in black and white. It was the first time in France that a director asked himself aesthetic questions in the context of a film intended to make people laugh. We still had Claude Renoir for photography, sublime sets, incredible exteriors, George Auric for music… We were also influenced by American cartoons, and all the crazy and colorful visual ideas that go with them, it wasn’t common at that time, eh. In short, for me the legacy of The Big Mop that’s it: a certain degree of ambition for all the comedies that were made afterwards. Claude Zidi was one of his heirs there, for example…

Uh, not all of Zidi’s films, though…
Well, yes, not all films, but actually… (silence) In fact there were few heirs.

It’s funny, that’s what we also said to ourselves: one of the most popular films in French cinema has barely spread. Ten years after him, all comedies started to look like TV and sounded cheap again.
The production system was already beginning to change, too. Independent producers were starting to become rarer. And then people realized that it was enough to put De Funès in front of a camera to bring at least three million French people back to theaters. It made easy money. So yes, it’s declining a bit, I have to admit. It’s a shame because if The Big Mop continues to last, it is because visually it is still as magnificent, imposing, impressive. When I see it again, I tell myself that my father got everything he wanted with this film. All. He was lucky that he was allowed this madness, but he knew how to make a great film out of it.

Fast and Funès, the parody that mixes Fast & Furious and Louis de Funès

Trailer for The Big Mop :

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