Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies

Like many other racing comedies, 'Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies' suffers from simply having too much going on at once. The film has so many different characters it tries to devote time to, it's easy to forget everything that's going on. It seemed like whenever Tony Curtis appeared on the screen I thought "Oh yeah, forgot he was in this." The film might be considered a multi-car wreck had it not been for Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Cook plays a British inventor, Moore his trusty sidekick. These two have all the best lines in the movie, and their deadpan delivery is perfect.

This one is a misfire on all counts. Most of the cast is lousy, the story is dull, the direction nonexistent, and the film is too long. It drones on and on cutting from one group in the car rally to another. The Germans and Italians and the "girls" are almost impossible to understand, so that cuts what you can follow to three groups. But all the little subplots go nowhere and the special effects are hideously bad. Location shooting mixes with bad studio shots and the bizarre mix of 60s fashion in a 1920s setting is stupid. Other than the cars, nothing in this film would remind anyone of the 1920s. To be fair, Susan Hampshire is bright, Terry-Thomas is always good, and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore seem to find the right comic voice for this type of farce. Tony Curtis is dreadful. Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques are wasted in nothing parts. Jack Hawkins is dubbed. Even the usually reliable Gert Frobe is defeated by the unfunny script. Not a sequel to THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES and nowhere near its equal in charm or comedy. Jimmy Durante for some reason sings the lame theme song but does not appear in this film. The film barely broke $1M at the US box office so I assume this was a huge flop ... and deservedly so.

As the US title would indicate this is a sort of following to ¨Those magnificent men in their flying machines¨ (1965) . In an international car rally , competitors must travel from various points in Europe to Monte Carlo, then race their cars . As daring young men in noise slow cars trek 1500 miles across nation in the 1920s race . Contestants come from all over the world from Norway , Italy , America and other countries . Things are complicated by shenanigans , hijinks , double-crosses , honor , medicine , and love at first sight ; all of them are founded along the route . A dastardly villain (Terry Thomas) and his steward , an escaped inmate (Gert Frobe), an American hero (Tony Curtis) , a downtrodden manservant (Eric Sykes) , two military gentlemen (Dudley Moore , Peter Cook) are the competitors , among others . Meanwhile , a nobleman named Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas) has sabotaged cars that start coming apart here , there and everywhere .

Auto race in an uproarious European tour ,circa 1920 ,completed with crashes , cheating , snow-chases , smuggling , inventions , bounds and leaps . These spectacular old cars provide the most side-splitting moments in a picture whose greatest assets are the animated Ronald Searle cartoons and the beginning , middle and final . Dudley Moore and and Peter Cook have various fun moments , while Gert Frobe is great as an astute villain . There's rather too much romance between Tony Curtis-Susan Hampshire and Lando Buzzanca-Mireille Darc . Special mention to Terry Thomas again in dastardly form as a British nasty who plans to sabotage all his rivals in the Monte Carlo rally . This followup to ¨Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes¨ had the same director (Ken Annakin), writers (Jack Davies and Annakin), composer (Ron Goodwin), and five actors . Terry-Thomas played the son of his character in the earlier movie, and Eric Sykes' character was again an employee of Terry-Thomas'. Gert Fröbe, William Rushton, and Michael Trubshawe played unrelated roles. Lively and jolly musical score by Ron Goodwin and theme song was sung by Jimmy Durante , including a piece of music entitled "The Schickel Shamble" which accompanies many of Gert Fröbe's scenes . Colorful and evocative cinematography by Gabor Pogany .

¨Montecarlo or Bust¨ belongs to a trilogy in which old machines such as cars and planes participate into spectacular races across Europe : the first was ¨The great race¨ by Blake Edwards with Tony Curtis , Natalie Wood , Ross Martin , Arthur O'Connell ; the second was ¨Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes¨ (1965) in which a wealthy newspaper publisher is persuaded to sponsor an air race from London a Paris , being directed by Ken Annakin with Stuart Withman , Sarah Miles , Get Frobe , Terry Thomas , Red Skelton ,Irene Demick and the third this ¨Montecarlo or bust¨.

This inferior sequel was professionally directed by Ken Annakin , though being sporadically funny and overly long : Ken was an expert on Adventure genre as ¨The new adventures of Pippi Longstockings¨, ¨Pirate movie¨ , ¨Paper tiger¨, ¨The fifth Musketeer¨ , ¨Call of wild¨, ¨The Swiss family Robinson¨, ¨Land of fury¨, ¨The Sword and the Rose¨, ¨The story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men¨, ¨Third man on the mountain¨ and Wartime genre as ¨Battle of the Bulge¨, and ¨The Longest day¨.

In the 1920's several international characters gather to compete in the gruelling Monte Carlo Rally. Some will employ fair means or foul to ensure victory.

This film was a follow up of sorts to 1965's 'Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines', although it also bares similarities to 'The Great Race'(in which Tony Curtis once again starred). Sadly it is not in the same class as either. It lacks the coherence, wit and spectacle of 'Flying Machines', despite Ken Annakin being at the helm once more. In fairness to him the main problem is the screenplay - its simply not that funny. This causes an over reliance on the visual gags, and here again the film falls short. The effects aren't terribly special even for 1969. Some of the characters are also downright irritating - I'm thinking particularly of the Italians - bulging eyed, flailing armed, noisy oafs.

There are some compensations however. Dear old Terry-Thomas and Eric Sykes repeat their double act from the previous film to some effect, and Susan Hampshire is every inch the English Rose. But its Peter Cook and Dudley Moore who steal the show as a British Army Officer/Inventor and his Batman respectively. They have all the best lines and manage to deliver them in a typically deadpan and upper class manner. Example:- As their car hurtles down a snowy hillside out of control, and having tried every concievable method of stopping it to no avail, Cook calmly announces "This simply won't do at all!" Priceless.

Not a total disaster then, but considering the talent involved, with better writing and more careful work all round it could have been, and indeed should have been, so much better.

My comment above is not at all to dissuade you from watching this frequently funny film it is mostly to recognize the colossal amount of money invested in these all star road romps that raced thru the 60s. MAD MAD WORLD and MAGNIFICENT MEN and GREAT RACE and then this along with the whopper period musicals (DARLING LILI) had production accountants suicidal. From 1964 to 1970 I can count 33 massive 'roadshow' musicals and 20 'roadshow' comedy adventure epics. Cinemas were weekly opening something with 22 stars and costing 22 million and all in 70mm and on reserved seats. Like concert overload, these overloaded films became so frequent that they lost their appeal. Like eating a ton of fruit salad. I found this film: THOSE DARING YOUNG MEN IN THEIR JAUNTY JALOPIES as a 3rd rung on the 'race' list extremely well made but with an inordinate amount of back projection and insert studio shots edited into scenes that were already in the can from location shooting, almost duplicating the film indoors for small spot shots. The rear projection scenes even involved crowded backgrounds (see the Sweden scenes) and duplicates of the main actors who only were inserted in the close ups... so some major stars actually did not go to some locations, just the second unit and the extras and stand-ins ... all cleverly inserted together with studio pick-up and dialog bits. The Terry-Thomas scenes and the Pete and Dud pukka British dastardry are by far the funniest and the Italian nonsense by far the most grating, sadly because they also feature the adorable Walter Chiari. So overloaded with scenes, antics and pantomime J-JALOPIES almost becomes impossible to follow, a fact itself recognizes because of the frequent split screen 'where are they now' compilation assemblies. Tony Curtis is hilarious and replays his Great Leslie image from THE GREAT RACE. J-JALOPIES is all terrific expensive Euro fun and well worth watching with kids and teens on family movie night. But the cost of this production! eek!