START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME

US, 1970, 98 minutes, Colour.
Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, Hugh Griffith, Jack McGauran?, Billie Whitelaw, Victor Spinetti, Ewa Aulin, Rosalind Knight, Harry Fowler, Murray Melvin, Graham Stark.
Directed by Bud Yorkin.

Start the Revolution Without Me was also known in its working title as Louis, There’s a Crowd Downstairs as well as Two Times Two. The film is a loose and spoof adaptation of elements of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities as well as the Dumas novel The Corsican Brothers. It capitalises on misplaced twins, one in the aristocracy, one amongst the ordinary citizenry. This time there are two on the eve of the revolution.

The film has a witty screenplay – with quite some innuendo in the spirit of 1970. It is colourful in its presentation of its period, has Hugh Griffith and Billie Whitelaw as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as well as a number of British character actors in support.

The film was directed by Bud Yorkin, a television director who made such films as Divorce American Style and Inspector Clouseau in the 1960s. His best serious film was the 1984 Twice in a Lifetime with Gene Hackman and Ellen Burstyn and Ann-Margret?.

An entertaining spoof of historical movies. The narration is by Orson Welles.

1. The indication of the tone of the title for parody, skit? Audience expectations from historical parody, comedy?

2. Audience enjoyment of costume drama? Equal enjoyment of parody? The light tone, the risk of the banal? What is the point about such an elaborate parody? Does an audience have to have historical background to enjoy It? Its relevance for a modern audience?

3. The film's use of colour, costumes, locations, music? The background of Alexandre Dumas and his novels? The background of the French Revolution? Presuppositions In audiences about France and the 18th century, the mock heroic?

4. The Introduction of Orson Welles at the beginning, the narrative, the setting, the 20th century background? The resumption of this at the end and the shooting of Welles? The 20th century lack of a solution?

5. The humour of the times and places, especially the sign repetition of 1789 and the parody of historical films and narratives? Was this successful, why?

6. The build-up to the birth of the two sets of twins? The farcical nature, the parallelling of the mothers, the fathers, the work of the doctor, priorities for rich and for poor, the mix-ups of the children? The arrivals of the second children? The humour of the mixing up of the pairs?

7. The transition to Corsica? The background of the story of the Corsican Brothers? Their characters, cruel, unlovely? The cruelty of the brother towards his wife and her devotion to him? The self-centredness and camp performance of the other brother? The deals with the Duke, with Marie Antoinette, betrayal of the King? The historical implications? The mocking of traditional heroes? Their petty quarrels amongst themselves of who was to go first etc.?

8. The contrast with the peasant brothers, the fact of their cowardice amongst the Revolutionaries, their pretending to be injured? Their being taken to task by Jacques? Their romance with Mimi?

9. The humour of the mix-up In the city with both brothers in peasant dress? The performances of Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland and the differentiation between the two twins? The Corsican brothers in peasant dress and their arrogance, the ordinariness of the peasant brothers and their being dressed up within the palace? How much humour to be derived from the charaterisations and the mixup?

10. The situations in the castle, the different identities, the satire on politics and deals?

11. The picture of Louis XVI as incompetent, foolish? The comedy in the portrayal of the King? His cowardice, signing treaties, the possibility of warding off the Revolution, packing his bags to escape?

13. The satire in the presentation of Marle Antoinette as a nymphomaniac? Her liaisons, ambitions, using men for her own purposes? The Duke, the Commander of the Guards, the Corsican Brothers themselves?

14. The Duke and his plans? The mastermind? The victim of the farce because so serious? The deal with the Corsican brothers, with Marie Antoinette? Betraying them both? His assistant? The soldiers disguised as monks etc.? The farcical presentation of the villain and his defeat?

15. How humorous the situations, reliance on knowledge of the situations, the Revolution? The picturing of the Revolutionaries and their fanaticism? The utter disregard of Royalty for the Revolutionaries? The Man In the Iron Mask?

16. The two women: the princess and her not being authentic? Mimi and the burning of the farm, the torture? The two trying to prove that they were sisters or not?

17. The fact that the Revolution might have been warded off? The humour of the granting of freedoms being trodden under? The Revolutionaries so keen for a Revolution?

18. How humorous was the final mystery? The transition to the 20th century and the shooting of everyone? Could there have been any other ending?

19. The purpose of this kind of parody and its effectiveness?