Start the Revolution Without Me

Ten years before the Zuckers made Airplane, television producer Bud Yorkin (All in The Family, Sanford and Son) got in and out of the movie business very quickly with Start the Revolution Without Me (1970), a hilarious parody of just about every movie made about the French Revolution or based on the novels of Dumas. Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland play dual roles as two pairs of mismatched twins. One pair are Corsican noblemen conspiring with Marie and the Count DiSicci to depose the king. The other pair are Parisian peasants trying to escape the fighting. Wilder and Sutherland make a great comedy team (even doing a take off on the patty-cake bit, from the Hope/Crosby Road Pictures). With an introduction by Orson Wells, Hugh Griffith and an assortment of English character actors attempting French accents (I saw this once on a double bill with Tom Jones, and many of the principles are in both films) and a great deal of location footage filmed on the grounds of Versailles including a very chaotic battle scene.

In a time when so many films are just plain "forgettable," it's good to be able to look back and fondly recall a film that was both funny and memorable.

This movie has it's own unique flavor of comedy while still being reminiscent of great films like "Catch 22," and "Help!" (Maybe it's the appearance of Orson Wells and Victor Spinetti that does this for me...)

There's much more than just slapstick to be had here. Definitely worth the look.

This film takes slapstick and douses it with farce at absurd proportions. It delivers laugh after laugh with no thought as to its higher purpose. Its Brechtian nature turns the fourth wall into a comedian's stage and pokes fun not only of the story, but of the conventions used to tell it. Fabulous performances by Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland are even more exciting when we think of the nuances they bring to each of their characters. Hugh Griffith turns in a charming performance as a King who is nothing more than a chicken with a crown.

This is a must see for anyone excited by classic slapstick-style comedy.

"All the Castles...all the chapels, All the Rocks, the stones, the trees, the flowers, the mud, the dirt.... And I SHALL BE QUEEN"

This movie is hilarious....I saw it on TV a LOOONG time ago, and then I saw it on DVD and bought it, now my sisters and I can't get enough of it....it's classic...."three feet of Persian rug..." haha...."later that night, 1789"....this movie made "pleasure their business" and it's a pleasure watching it.....Whatever...and we can't stop quoting this movie...."I thought it was a costume ball"

It's a great movie....some people don't know what funny is when it hits them in the face...

I suppose there are people who have the equivalent of color-blindness affecting their sense of humor. How else to explain the grouches & grinches who can't laugh at this goofy romp. Wilder & Sutherland as a pair of split-at-birth twins - Spinetti & Whitelaw & Griffith & MacGowran as support. Doesn't get much better.