IF you like Louis de Funès and his comic genius, this film is for you since he appears not once, but twice!
This evening at 9:10 p.m., C8 is broadcasting a feature film with Louis de Funès in which the famous comedian plays not one, but two roles! Find out how the actor made up his face and the justification for this double role!
He already played two roles in this feature film, which also won the Palme d’Or!
Marcel and Paulette Pérignon, workers, buy a beautiful American car for a pittance. For Marcel, the purchase doesn’t turn out to be such a good deal, because he loses his job for having a nicer car than his boss, and the police suspect him of stealing the vehicle. And that’s just the beginning of his troubles…
The film contains a surprise, because in the first part, Louis de Funès appears in the role of Monsieur Viralot, head of personnel at the Marcel factory, and decides his dismissal for having come to work with a car supplanting in class that of the big boss ! He is present in several scenes, including one which sees him giving the floor to the future Fougasse des Gendarmes: Jean Lefebvre!
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But in the second part of La Belle Americaine, Marcel is summoned to the station again and this time, he is greeted by… Louis de Funès, again! This time he plays another Monsieur Viralot, the twin brother of the previous one! All with a mustache and an accent, as was customary at the time:
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When he started out at the end of the 1940s, Louis de Funès also appeared in a double role for The Judgment of God. He will return to the thing in Courte tête in which he plays three different characters, but it is in the film Du Guesclin that he beats his record, since he is present in four roles, including one off-camera!
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Louis de Funès in two of his roles as “Du Guesclin”
The American Beauty is the third film by the “Branquignols” theater troupe. They debuted on the big screen with Branquignol (1949) then Ah! Les belles bacchantes (1954), which had exceeded 2 million admissions. La Belle americaine will reach 3.5 million, becoming the 7th biggest success of the year in France.
Years later, they will meet Louis de Funès, who has since become a box office star, for Le Petit Baigneur, one of his great classics, which contains one of his 5 best cable farts!