Louis de Funès is one of my favorite French actors. I grew up with movies like “Les gendarmes de St-Tropez” and many of the other movies De Funès has made.I have two favorites, “L’aile ou la cuisse” and ‘Le Grand restaurant”. L’aile ou la cuisse is actually based on the “Michelin Guide” story. In this movie Louis De Funès plays Charles Duchemin boss of the Duchemin guide. Mr Duchemin thinks of retiring and wants his son to take over the family business, so they decide to take a trip to finish Mr Duchemin’s last “Guide” as head of his company. On top of that, lots of restaurants get taken over by a big industrial highway restaurantkeeper. They encounter really funny things, especially because his son prefers another carrier. 

Le grand restaurant is great, because if you place it back in the years the movie came out… As I think that in high class restaurants, this was the real way of working.

In “Le Grand Restaurant” De Funès plays Monsieur Septime, owner of restaurant “Septime”. In the restaurant, all guests are treated as kings and queens and with the biggest respect you can imagine. This is however in big contrast with his personnel that get yelled to with every small mistake they make. This gives some hilarious scenes.  On of the most famous scenes is where Mr Septime explains high placed politicians how to make the pommes duchess.

Again, you really can’t forget that these movies were made in the 1960’s. But nevertheless these are “Classics”. They have both been translated, but seeing the original version is still the best!!

Have you already seen the movie? Did you like it?