Soldat Duroc, ça va être ta fête (1975)
Directed by Michel Gérard

Film Review

In the 1970s, in the wake of the success of Robert Altman's series-spawning hit movie M*A*S*H, there was a spate of French comedies that attempted to make light of army life, presumably capitalising on the increasing unpopularity of military service amongst the young.  Whilst some of these films - such as Robert Lamoureux's Septième compagnie offerings - stand up reasonably well today, others deserve to be forgotten, including almost every film of the bidasse or 'sad sack' variety.

Michel Gérard's Soldat Duroc, ça va être ta fête exemplifies this latter comedy blind alley, a film that tries (and fails) to derive humour from the implausible misadventures of a young conscript who is more interested in making love than war.  The same idea had already been done to death by the popular musical comedians the Charlots in their earlier military skits, Les Bidasses en folie (1971) and Les bidasses s'en vont en guerre (1974), and no one would ever mistake these as comic masterpieces.

Throughout the seventies, Michel Gérard somehow managed to find an audience for his lowbrow comedies, a better example being Les Vacanciers (1974).  Many of these featured his favourite comic actors Pierre Tornade, Michel Galabru and Paul Préboist, who at least have some flair comedy, unlike Gérard.  Whilst Soldat Duroc isn't quite as dismal as the writer-director's subsequent Arrête ton char... bidasse! (1977), which is truly terrible, it does struggle to get the laughs and in doing so it has to resort to the kind of cheap innuendo that was endemic in French comedies throughout the 1970s.

On the acting front, Régis Porte show promise in his first substantial screen role as the likeably gauche Duroc who goes AWOL, and most of the cast fair surprisingly well given the bargain basement material they have to work with.  It's a shame that Gérard's abilities as a director were not matched by his skill as a writer, because the main thing that prevents Soldat Duroc from being an enjoyable romp is its hopelessly second rate script.

Film Synopsis

In 1944, a regiment of gallant French soldiers is preparing to liberate the northern French town of Senlis from its occupying Germans, but before they can do so the Americans show up in force and do the job for them.  This suits Duroc, one of the soldiers with the French regiment, because he can go AWOL one night so that he can hook up with his fiancée Nicole. It so happens that on this particular night, a commando unit is tasked with kidnapping a German officer in Duroc's home town and Duroc's special knowledge of the area is needed for the operation to succeed.  When it is discovered that Duroc has done a bunk he finds himself in very hot water...