Monte Carlo or Bust!

Plot

An international car rally in the 1920s attracts competitors from all over the world to compete in the Monte Carlo Rally. The archrivals from Britain, Italy, France and Germany find that their greatest competition comes from the United States in the form of Chester Schofield (Tony Curtis), who had won half of an automobile factory in a poker game with the late father of baronet Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas). Ware-Armitage has entered the race in a winner-take-all to exact revenge and win back the lost half of the company.

The international cast of characters appear to mirror their national foibles. British Army officers Maj. Digby Dawlish (Peter Cook) and Lieut. Kit Barrington (Dudley Moore), who have entered to preserve the honour of the British Empire, drive an outlandish vehicle festooned with odd inventions. Italian policemen Angelo Pincelli (Walter Chiari) and Marcello Agosti (Lando Buzzanca) seem to be more interested in chasing three French women, led by Doctor Marie-Claude (Mireille Darc). The German entry from overbearing Willi Schickel (Gert Fröbe) and Otto Schwartz (Peer Schmidt) turn out to be convicts, driving with stolen gems on board.

As the race begins, the contestants find that not only are they in a 1,500-mile battle with each other, but dangerous roads and the elements including a massive avalanche, are just as formidable. Chester and his new co-driver, Betty (Susan Hampshire) end up duelling with Cuthbert while the Italians are the winners of the rally but relinquish their prize to the French woman's team to help people injured in the snowslide. Various misfortunes plague each of the contestants, with Cuthbert, poised to win, being disqualified for cheating, the British Army team blowing up, the Germans being arrested and Chester falling asleep at the wheel. In the end, the Italians are declared the winners and share their winnings with the French girls. Chester does eventually cross the finish line, albeit due to Betty and some others pushing his car.

Cast

In alphabetical order

and also with

Production

Annakin had difficulties working with his American screen idol, Tony Curtis, and considered him, "brittle, self-centered and a bully". Curtis, however, enjoyed his time in Rome, one of the primary filming locations and became romantically linked to his co-star, Susan Hampshire.

Besides the studio work at the Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica Studios, Rome and Lazio, Italy, principal photography took place from 31 March–May 1968 at a large number of locations: England, Paris, France, Monaco, Monte Carlo, Monte Gelato Falls, Treja River, Italy and Åre, Jämtlands län, Sweden. Most of the exotic locations were from the second-unit directors while studio process shots mainly inserted the lead actors into the scenes.

An excerpt from composer Ron Goodwin's cue, "The Schickel Shamble" became the theme music for the long-running BBC Radio 4 comedy series I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue which later featured Willie Rushton as a regular panellist.

Automobiles

Tony Curtis is driving an Alvis Speed 20 (1932–36) named the "Triple S, Six-Sylinder Special", and Gert Fröbe is in a Mercedes SSK (1928–32). Terry-Thomas's car first is a Ware-Armitage, while his official entry is in a "Nifty Nine, Mark II". The other British team is in a Lea-Francis, outfitted with an array of ingenious contraptions including the Dawlish Klaxon, the Dawlish Periscope, the Dawlish Snow Stoppers, the Dawlish Snow Melter, bits to turn it into the Dawlish Super Snow Tractor, Dawlish Extending Foglamp and rocket boosters. Marcelo and Angelo are in a Lancia Lambda, while Dominique drives a Peugeot 201 ... and lurking in the background are a bullnose Morris Oxford (1919–26) and a Blower Bentley (1927–31).

Reception

Monte Carlo or Bust! was favourably received by audiences and critics alike. The comparison to Annakin's earlier work, notwithstanding, The New York Times review noted, "... the picture is lively and often hilarious, as the drivers hang on for dear life and the old cars honk, collide and careen. There is hardly a turn without a bang-up or a mix-up."

In the opinion of the writer Matthew Sweet, Peter Cook as Major Dawlish, and Dudley Moore as Lt. Barrington, are the performers who have the humour in the film that survives best. Peter Cook's Major Dawlish is the creator of a series of fairly ludicrous inventions – the feeling hovers "that it might be all over for Britain." Sweet states that it is a send-up of the British Empire, "which is very 1960s and not far from the sort of thing they would have been doing in The Establishment Club in Soho a few years earlier, where really for the first time, these upper-class stereotypes had been sent up with a vein of cruelty as well as a vein of affection. I think you can see it as a kind of post-Empire film." Cook and Moore play the representatives of Empire:

More recent reviews have not been as complimentary, with Leonard Maltin characterising it as mid-fare, "some funny scenes, but backfires a bit too often."